Robert's Blog

ALL GOOD THINGS come to an end. The time has come for me to leave Shapeways and start to work on new projects and ideas. The last 5 years at Shapeways have been exciting and exhilarating. We achieved so much. The company has grown from an idea to multinational with 4 offices worldwide and over 50 employees. Shapeways has closed two rounds of funding and is the market leader in her segment.

I can still remember in the early days while building up the upload-to-print systems and testing 3D printing, we had serious challenges to find and create good test sets of 3D models. 3D models which were fit for 3D printing and at the same time posed some challenges for 3D printers and the 3D printing process. Now Shapeways has printed over 750.000 3D models in 2011 alone. It is a staggering number.

Shapeways is more than a company. It is the designers who make Shapeways what it is. I have met so many of you. It was my privilege to work with all of you. It is your inspiring designs which makes building something like Shapeways so fulfilling. I will keep following all of you. Please keep surprising me!

I trust in the awesome team I leave behind, that they can grow and mature Shapeways, to take it into new directions and make social fabrication part of society and culture. I look back on my days at Shapeways with fondness. Some very good memories have been made. I am sure new milestones will be reached this year and the years beyond. I am going to make my own new memories. Good luck to Shapeways and the team!

This post is also posted on shapeways.com