The 3D printing group appoints former Cognex chief Rob Willett because it quietly reshapes its governance. And begins to look rather a lot like an organization preparing for one thing.
When a privately held industrial tech firm replaces a founding-era board member with a veteran of Nasdaq-listed industrial corporations, the transfer hardly ever goes unnoticed. Formlabs, the Somerville, Massachusetts-based 3D printing group, has performed precisely that, and the corporate’s personal language in regards to the appointment makes the subtext unusually simple to learn.
Rob Willett, the previous chief government of Cognex, the machine imaginative and prescient firm that has traded publicly since 1989, joins Formlabs’ board with rapid impact. He replaces Carl Bass, the previous Autodesk chief government who has served as a director since 2017.
On the time of writing, Formlabs has not replied to a query as as to if this appointment represents pre-IPO groundwork or is extra IPO-optionality. However the appointment carries its personal commentary.
Why Willett, and why now
Cognex constructed its enterprise on exactly the mannequin that industrial expertise buyers have rewarded most reliably: proprietary {hardware} built-in with software program, recurring income tied to put in gear, and international manufacturing clients who make switching painful. When Willett left in 2025 after nearly 18 years with the corporate, 14 of them as chief government, the corporate had grown right into a billion-dollar enterprise supplying inspection and steerage programs throughout electronics, automotive and logistics.
The Formlabs Manufacturing Community, a vetted assortment of Formlabs’ 3D printer homeowners who make surplus capability out there, not too long ago handed the 50,000 print mark.
That trajectory maps onto what Formlabs has been quietly setting up. Its desktop and industrial programs, spanning stereolithography and selective laser sintering, now serve engineers, dental labs, healthcare suppliers and producers. Extra importantly, they run on proprietary resins and powders that clients should proceed shopping for as soon as a printer is put in. The corporate says greater than 500 million components have been produced on its programs. That isn’t a prototyping enterprise. That’s infrastructure.
Natan Linder, co-founder and chairman, framed the transition fastidiously. “As Formlabs continues its evolution from breakthrough startup to enduring manufacturing platform,” he stated, “his expertise scaling advanced {hardware} and automation firms will probably be invaluable.” The phrase “enduring manufacturing platform” is doing plenty of work in that sentence.
Formlabs doesn’t disclose monetary outcomes, however trade estimates place annual income within the a whole lot of thousands and thousands of {dollars}, supported by a big put in base of printers and recurring supplies gross sales. That scale would place it among the many bigger privately held additive manufacturing corporations, and inside the vary the place public market listings develop into viable, notably if progress and margins stay secure.
What Bass helped construct, and what comes subsequent
Bass, who led Autodesk from 2006 to 2017, joined Formlabs at a unique second: one centered on legitimacy. His position was to sign to the market that critical individuals believed in additive manufacturing as an expert software, not a hobbyist curiosity. He helped information the corporate by its enlargement into SLS sintering, growing a class the place earlier market entrants struggled to achieve a foothold, and into higher-throughput manufacturing programs.
That work is completed. The query Formlabs now faces isn’t whether or not its expertise is credible, however whether or not its enterprise mannequin can carry out at scale in entrance of quarterly reporting necessities and institutional buyers. That may be a completely different form of problem, and it requires completely different expertise on the board.
The SPAC wreckage that Formlabs has averted
Formlabs has watched its sector undergo a brutal reckoning. Desktop Metallic, Markforged, and Velo3D all entered the general public markets by special-purpose acquisition firms between 2020 and 2021, driving a wave of enthusiasm for digital manufacturing that proved considerably forward of income.
The businesses which have held up higher (Stratasys, 3D Programs) are people who emphasised recurring income from supplies and companies slightly than {hardware} gross sales alone. Traders realized, the exhausting means, that additive manufacturing firms aren’t software program companies. Their capital depth is actual, their gross sales cycles are lengthy, and their margins require self-discipline to guard.
Formlabs, which has raised greater than $250 million since its founding in 2011 from buyers together with New Enterprise Associates, Foundry Group, Tyche Companions, and SoftBank, has been personal lengthy sufficient that exit stress isn’t a hypothetical. Greater than a decade of enterprise possession means early buyers are watching their choices. A public itemizing, a secondary transaction, or an acquisition would every present liquidity. The governance adjustments being made now are in step with making ready for at the very least a type of outcomes.
In 2021, Co-founder Max Lobovsky stated relating to a possible IPO, “We’d slightly take our time and be actually able to be a superb public firm, to be massive sufficient to be a profitable public firm, after which go public at that time.”
The commercial expertise template
The Cognex parallel is value taking significantly. The machine imaginative and prescient firm scaled from area of interest inspection software to important manufacturing element by combining {hardware} lock-in with software program that made clients reluctant to go away. Its working margins have remained among the many strongest in industrial expertise all through cycles of demand volatility.
Formlabs is making an attempt one thing related. Apart from constructing merchandise that work effectively and clients really wish to use, its software program layer (managing print workflows, optimising manufacturing runs, monitoring system efficiency) creates stickiness past the supplies relationship. Prospects who combine Formlabs programs into manufacturing unit processes don’t make a choice they revisit frivolously. That switching value is strictly what public market buyers in industrial expertise pay a premium to personal.
Getting ready for a public itemizing sometimes entails adjustments past governance, together with monetary reporting infrastructure, inside controls compliant with Sarbanes-Oxley necessities, and elevated operational predictability. Board composition is commonly one of many earliest seen indicators, notably the addition of administrators with expertise working public firms by earnings cycles.
Whether or not Formlabs can show the margin profile and income predictability that these buyers count on is the query {that a} Willett appointment begins to reply. He is aware of easy methods to run a {hardware} firm by earnings cycles. He is aware of what analysts ask about capital allocation, gross margins, and geographic enlargement. He is aware of, in different phrases, what it takes to be a public firm, which can be exactly why he’s now on this board. The transition, if it comes, will take a look at whether or not Formlabs can protect its long-term execution whereas adapting to the monetary transparency and consistency that public buyers demand.
Formlabs has not responded to a request for touch upon any plans relating to a public itemizing.
