Protolabs and 3D Hubs: Forging the Future of On-Demand Digital Manufacturing

The landscape of on-demand manufacturing witnessed a significant shift last January when Protolabs 3D Printing Service announced its strategic acquisition of 3D Hubs, a pioneering online manufacturing platform. This monumental move brought together two powerhouses in the digital manufacturing space, each renowned for its unique approach and comprehensive capabilities. Protolabs, a global leader in rapid manufacturing of custom parts through advanced methods like injection molding, CNC machining, industrial 3D printing, and precision sheet metal fabrication, merged forces with 3D Hubs, an innovative company that began its journey in 2013. Over the past decade, 3D Hubs has undergone remarkable developments and strategic pivots, evolving from a peer-to-peer 3D printing platform where customers could directly order and receive parts, to a sophisticated and comprehensive “manufacturing as a service” (MaaS) provider. Through continuous strategic investments and cutting-edge technological advancements, 3D Hubs expanded its offering to include a wide array of subtractive manufacturing solutions, with the overarching goal of providing global customers with an extensive and diverse portfolio of production techniques tailored to meet their specific engineering and design needs. This landmark acquisition by Protolabs opens up new and exciting perspectives for both entities, propelling them towards a shared vision: to become the largest, most versatile, and most accessible manufacturing platform in the world. But what exactly does this pivotal acquisition mean for the Amsterdam-based 3D Hubs? What are the immediate and long-term impacts and transformations that we can expect to observe across the digital manufacturing industry? To delve deeper into these crucial questions, we had the distinct opportunity to speak with Filemon Schoffer, the insightful co-founder and CCO of 3D Hubs, who graciously shed light on this pivotal moment in the evolution of on-demand manufacturing.

3DN: How would you describe 3D Hubs’ remarkable journey since its launch in 2013?

Filemon Schoffer enthusiastically shared, “It has truly been an exhilarating, dynamic, and transformative adventure since the company’s inception back in 2013! 3D Hubs has undergone profound changes and experienced rapid, continuous growth over the last eight years, constantly adapting and innovating to meet the evolving demands of the manufacturing sector. We initially started as a pioneering peer-to-peer 3D printing platform, a concept that was quite revolutionary and community-driven at the time. In those very early days, our commitment to direct customer service was so ingrained that we personally delivered orders to customers, often traversing Amsterdam on bikes! This hands-on, grassroots approach not only fostered a strong sense of community but also provided invaluable direct feedback that laid the groundwork for our subsequent expansion. From these humble yet ambitious beginnings, we swiftly grew to become recognized as the largest 3D printing network globally, effectively connecting individuals and businesses with local additive manufacturing capabilities. Recognizing the broader potential and evolving needs within digital manufacturing, in 2018, we strategically expanded our offering beyond solely 3D printing to include high-precision CNC machining. This expansion marked a pivotal moment in our trajectory, as we began to view the manufacturing landscape as an integrated whole, significantly transitioning our core business model towards a robust B2B ‘manufacturing as a service’ (MaaS) platform. This crucial shift allowed us to serve professional engineers, product developers, and businesses more effectively, offering a broader and more integrated range of solutions for rapid prototyping, functional part production, and low-volume manufacturing.”

Schoffer continued, “Our unwavering commitment to continuous improvement and the expansion of our service capabilities led us to invest heavily in refining and enhancing our sophisticated digital platform. Following the successful integration of CNC machining, we later diversified our service offerings even further by adding other crucial manufacturing processes, including highly efficient injection molding and versatile sheet metal fabrication. This comprehensive expansion truly positioned us as a versatile, all-encompassing on-demand manufacturing partner, capable of addressing nearly any custom part requirement across various industries. A key pillar of our unprecedented success has been the meticulous development and nurturing of our extensive global network of leading manufacturing partners. Today, this robust and reliable network proudly boasts more than 240 state-of-the-art facilities strategically spread across four continents, ensuring unparalleled reach, operational flexibility, and supply chain resilience. To complement this geographically distributed network and to guarantee consistent quality and efficiency across all orders, we also established dedicated 3D Hubs’ warehouses in strategic logistical hubs like Chicago and Amsterdam. These facilities play a crucial role in performing rigorous internal quality control checks and streamlining complex customs clearance processes for international orders, thereby ensuring a smooth, reliable, and expedited delivery experience for our customers, regardless of their geographical location.”

“Ultimately, this comprehensive and forward-thinking strategy has culminated in the creation of a truly seamless, efficient, and user-friendly experience for ordering custom parts. Our advanced digital platform provides engineers and designers with the unparalleled flexibility to choose between local production, which typically offers significantly faster turnaround times and is ideal for urgent needs, albeit often at a slightly higher price point, or leveraging our expansive global network for international production, which frequently comes with more competitively priced options, though potentially with longer lead times. This dual approach empowers our customers to strategically optimize their projects for either speed or cost, based on their specific project requirements and deadlines,” Schoffer explained. “The undeniable efficacy and resilience of this strategy were emphatically demonstrated in early 2020. Despite the unprecedented global supply chain disruptions caused by the widespread COVID-19 pandemic, our robust, agile, and geographically distributed network allowed us to continue producing and delivering essential parts for our customers without significant interruptions, unequivocally proving the inherent strength and resilience of our unique operational model. Now, with the transformative Protolabs acquisition, we are incredibly excited and optimistic to embark on this next pivotal chapter. By combining the distinct strengths and extensive manufacturing portfolios of our two highly complementary companies, our overarching goal is to firmly establish the largest and most comprehensive manufacturing portfolio in the world, further democratizing access to advanced production capabilities for innovators and businesses everywhere, fostering an era of unprecedented creativity and efficiency.”

3DN: How do you perceive the evolution of the 3D printing market in recent years?

Regarding the transformative trajectory of additive manufacturing, Filemon Schoffer observed, “From our unique vantage point at 3D Hubs, deeply embedded in the daily flow of custom part production, we’ve witnessed a truly remarkable and significant evolution within the 3D printing market over the past few years. There has been a definitive and accelerating shift away from the predominant production of mere prototypes towards an increasingly substantial and expanding production of functional, end-use finished parts. This represents a critical development, profoundly signifying the maturation of 3D printing from primarily a rapid prototyping tool to a viable, valuable, and indispensable method for true industrial end-use production. We are now regularly observing a consistent increase in larger and more complex orders for 3D printed components, indicative of greater industry confidence in the technology for scaled and demanding applications. The continued and robust growth of HP’s Multi Jet Fusion (MJF) technology, for instance, serves as a compelling and tangible reflection of this overarching trend. MJF’s ability to produce high-quality, complex parts with excellent mechanical properties at a competitive cost and speed, especially for batch production, has been instrumental in bridging the historical gap between prototyping and true manufacturing. Beyond MJF, significant advancements in material science, improved and automated post-processing techniques, and the enhanced reliability, repeatability, and scalability of other cutting-edge 3D printing processes like Selective Laser Sintering (SLS), Stereolithography (SLA), and various metal additive manufacturing technologies are all contributing synergistically to this exciting paradigm shift, solidifying 3D printing’s increasingly important role in mainstream industrial production pipelines globally.”

3DN: What does the future hold for 3D Hubs following its recent acquisition by Protolabs?

Schoffer detailed the profound and synergistic future, explaining, “The acquisition by Protolabs represents a monumental leap forward for 3D Hubs, profoundly shaping our future trajectory and expanding our potential exponentially. By strategically integrating the distinct yet highly complementary offerings of both 3D Hubs and Protolabs, we are poised to provide our combined user base – a vast and growing community of engineers, designers, product developers, and manufacturers worldwide – with unprecedented access to an expanded universe of manufacturing possibilities and solutions. This integration will significantly enhance their capabilities by enabling even greater design complexity, ensuring tighter and more precise tolerances, offering a much broader array of advanced finishing options, and providing access to an even more extensive selection of high-performance materials. Crucially, customers will also benefit from a wider range of competitive pricing structures and highly flexible lead-time options, empowering them to precisely optimize for cost-efficiency, production speed, or extreme precision as their specific project demands. At its core, 3D Hubs has always excelled at providing a seamless, efficient, and cost-effective experience for accessing overseas production, particularly for intricate and complex parts, and for facilitating reliable low-volume production runs at very competitive prices, leveraging the efficiency of our expansive global network. Protolabs, on the other hand, stands unrivaled as arguably the fastest on-demand manufacturing service in the world, renowned for its incredible speed, consistency, and reliability in delivering custom parts with unmatched lead times. The combined strength of these two distinct yet perfectly aligned advantages means that, together, we will be uniquely positioned to support engineers and innovators better than ever before, offering an unparalleled spectrum of speed, cost-efficiency, technological breadth, and material choice across the entire product development lifecycle, from initial concept validation to market-ready final production.”

3DN: What has the acquisition process been like over the last few months?

Reflecting on the integration period, Schoffer shared, “The acquisition process over the last few months has been an overwhelmingly positive, genuinely collaborative, and incredibly insightful experience. From the initial strategic discussions, the more we engaged and communicated transparently with the Protolabs team, the clearer it became that we shared a remarkably similar, if not practically identical, vision for what the future of manufacturing should fundamentally look like. Both companies are deeply and passionately committed to revolutionizing access to manufacturing capabilities for everyone. We both passionately believe that engineers and designers, regardless of their project’s scale or complexity, should be empowered to order custom parts and manage low-volume production runs with the absolute greatest ease, efficiency, and speed possible, effectively removing traditional barriers, complex procurement processes, and frustrating delays. This profound shared philosophy, coupled with clear strategic alignment on market direction and customer needs, has made the integration remarkably smooth, built on a foundation of mutual respect, trust, and a collective desire to innovate and deliver unparalleled value to our customers globally. It’s truly exciting and inspiring to merge with a company that not only complements our existing services and technological strengths but also resonates so strongly with our core values, long-term aspirations, and cultural ethos for the future of the industry.”

3DN: What does this change in terms of operation for 3D Hubs?

Addressing the operational aspects and the immediate future of the merger, Schoffer clarified, “In the immediate short term, the two companies, 3D Hubs and Protolabs, will continue to operate with a degree of healthy independence. This strategic approach allows us to meticulously maintain the distinct strengths, unique market positioning, and operational efficiencies of both platforms, while simultaneously actively and diligently working together to develop a comprehensive, robust, and synergistic integration plan. This plan is being meticulously designed to ensure we can best serve our combined, expanded customer base, maximizing synergies and capitalizing on mutual strengths without disrupting ongoing operations or customer experiences. However, even during this transitional phase, we are already identifying and implementing numerous ‘winning synergies’ as we progress. For instance, customers utilizing the 3D Hubs platform will soon have access to significantly faster turnaround times for certain critical projects, made possible by strategically leveraging the advanced manufacturing facilities and rapid production capabilities directly owned and operated by Protolabs. This means customers now have an even broader spectrum of choices, from 3D Hubs’ cost-effective global network for intricate or budget-sensitive projects to Protolabs’ lightning-fast local production for urgent or time-critical needs. Looking further ahead into the future, we have ambitious plans to significantly enhance, expand, and optimize our injection molding service. We intend to achieve this by taking full advantage of Protolabs’ proprietary digital approach to mold making and their unparalleled two decades of invaluable experience across a wide spectrum of various molding technologies. This strategic leverage will allow us to offer even more efficient, cost-effective, and high-quality injection molding solutions, further cementing our position as a leading and indispensable partner for comprehensive on-demand manufacturing services globally.”

3DN: Any last words for our readers?

Filemon Schoffer concluded with a powerful and inspiring message for the audience, passionately emphasizing the core mission that continues to drive 3D Hubs forward. “Since the very inception of 3D Hubs, our fundamental and unwavering mission has always been to empower engineers, designers, and innovators alike to push the absolute boundaries of what’s technologically possible, enabling them to innovate relentlessly and create truly revolutionary products that have the potential to redefine and transform entire industries. I am profoundly convinced that this strategic partnership with Protolabs will not only amplify but also dramatically accelerate our collective ability to achieve this mission on an unprecedented global scale. By combining our unique strengths, technological expertise, and extensive networks, we will provide these creative minds with nothing short of the ‘superpowers’ they need to turn their most ambitious ideas, complex designs, and visionary concepts into tangible, market-ready realities. This groundbreaking merger is about more than just manufacturing; it’s about fostering a new era of innovation, accessibility, and efficiency in product development and supply chain management. We sincerely invite all our readers to explore the expanded possibilities and unparalleled advantages this dynamic partnership brings. Feel free to visit our official website to learn more about our comprehensive services and the exciting future that lies ahead for digital manufacturing HERE!”

What are your thoughts on this significant and forward-thinking merger between 3D Hubs and Protolabs? How do you foresee it impacting the future trajectory of digital manufacturing, on-demand production, and the broader engineering landscape? We eagerly await and highly value your insights! Let us know your perspective in a comment below, or engage with us on our vibrant social media platforms: connect with us on LinkedIn, join the conversation on Facebook, and follow our updates on Twitter pages! Furthermore, don’t miss out on the latest advancements, groundbreaking innovations, and breaking news in the additive manufacturing world; sign up for our completely free weekly Newsletter here to have the freshest 3D printing news, insights, and market trends delivered straight to your inbox every single week!