Autodesk's 3D printing fund puts $10M in Carbon3D, maker of faster 3D printing tech
Daniel Terdiman / VentureBeat :
Context & Ripple Effects
Carbon3D had just unveiled a resin-growth printing method it claimed was 25-100 times faster than conventional layer-by-layer printing, and Autodesk is now the first strategic investor to put money behind the claim through its 3D printing fund. The $10M check buys the design-software company an early seat at the table for a process that, unlike traditional printers, needs software to drive it.
Autodesk had been building this playbook already: months later it launched its Forge development platform alongside a $100M fund, and in 2016 it teamed with Formlabs on a rival desktop system. The Carbon3D bet positions Autodesk to own the software layer of additive manufacturing regardless of which hardware wins.
First-order effects
- Carbon3D gains $10M plus a strategic partner whose design tools sit upstream of any printed object — capital that precedes the much larger $100M round led by Google Ventures five months later.
- Autodesk secures early access to a printing technology that requires continuous computational control, aligning its core software business with the new process.
Second-order effects
- Google Ventures' follow-on validates the strategic-investor template, pulling corporate money into hardware rounds that VCs alone might not price.
- Rival hardware makers respond in kind: Desktop Metal later raises a $115M Series D with GE Ventures among its backers, and Formlabs pairs its raise with an explicit Autodesk partnership — capital and platform alignment become the competitive currency.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, 3D printing consolidates around software-platform-plus-hardware alliances rather than standalone printer companies — by 2019 Carbon reaches a $2.4B valuation on the strength of production customers like Ford and Adidas raised $260M at that mark.
- Design-software vendors shift from selling CAD seats to owning the connective tissue between digital models and physical fabrication, making the printer ecosystem an extension of their installed base.
The trend: Additive manufacturing is being financed and organized by design-software platforms seeking to control the model-to-object pipeline, with strategic funds seeding the hardware they intend to orchestrate.