Founder Insights

Make It More Accessible

“What Formlabs is doing is trying to redefine what it means to 3D print, by making the tools and technology accessible right there on your desktop. This was the Holy Grail for the industry for many years. Now we are finally able to enable our users with affordable high quality printer that works right out of the box. We are designers and engineers and we designed the Form 1 for designers and engineers and the reception that community has given us so far was amazing and humbling” – Natan Linder

Build a Virtuous Circle

“I think there are a lot of applications for 3D printing and Form 1 will contribute to all of those: prototyping for new products, one-off parts for manufacturing and research, art or jewelry applications; we'll do all of those things but what we're most excited about is how we'll actually help people doing what we did, which is doing product development on a shoestring budget, launching on Kickstarter and stuff like that. This is actually the perfect tool for people doing a lot of work like that, so it's kind of a virtuous circle that we've built” – Maxim Lobovsky

Success Story

As grad students in MIT’s "How to Make (Almost) Anything" class, Maxim Lobovsky, Natan Linder, and David Cranor noticed a huge gap in the 3D printer market. They came together with a vision to bring a low-cost 3D printer to the masses and founded Formlabs in September 2011.

In November 2011, Maxim, David and Natan raised a $500K round of seed funding from former Google CEO, Eric Schmidt, MIT Media Lab director, Joi Ito, and Mitch Kapor, the founder of Lotus. In less than a year, they created the Form 1 printer, using stereolithography technology to approach the highest resolution in 3D printing.

The founders then looked to crowd-funding site Kickstarter. Officially unveiling their Form 1 printer prototype to the world in September 2012, they asked for a minimum Kickstarter pledge of $2,299. Their goal was to raise $100,000 from Kickstarter supporters.

Not only did they shatter their fundraising goal, but Formlabs became the highest-funded tech campaign in Kickstarter history, raising $2,945,885 in just a matter of months.

Today, Formlabs is expanding access to digital fabrication, so anyone can make anything. Headquartered in Somerville, Massachusetts with offices in Germany, Japan, China, Singapore, Hungary, and North Carolina, Formlabs is the professional 3D printer of choice for engineers, designers, manufacturers, and decision makers around the globe.

Goodwin assisted with Formlabs' seed financing and continues to provide corporate advice as the company expands.