Shapeways Merges with Galileo Acquisition Corp.

Shapeways Inc., a global digital manufacturing platform, and Galileo Acquisition Corp., a publicly traded special-purpose acquisition company, have entered into a merger agreement in which Shapeways will be acquired by Galileo. Upon transaction closing, the combined company will be named Shapeways Holdings Inc. and led by Greg Kress, Shapeways’ CEO.

As part of the deal, Desktop Metal has joined as a strategic investor and will partner with Shapeways to accelerate the addition of metals to its growing materials list. Shapeways currently utilizes 11 additive manufacturing (AM) technologies and offers more than 90 materials and finishes.

Shapeways’ software combined with efficient on-demand manufacturing enables customers to rapidly transform digital designs into physical products, the company says. It makes industrial-grade AM accessible by fully digitizing the end-to-end manufacturing process, and by providing a broad range of solutions — delivering more than 21 million parts to 1 million customers in over 160 countries.

The Shapeways platform is positioned to scale across materials, markets and technologies. Expanding AM capabilities will enable acceleration of adoption in key markets, including industrial, medical, automotive, and aerospace.

As an example of this opportunity, Shapeways signed a strategic partnership with Desktop Metal, a provider of AM metal technologies, which is an important expansion beyond Shapeways’ current focus on polymers.

According to the company, the AM industry has been experiencing a transformation due to significant advances in production technologies, innovation in materials and the adoption of software to increase speed, lower cost, and achieve higher flexibility.

Shapeways has responded by broadening its business model and is poised for growth in responding to demands for supply chain agility post-pandemic as well as the overall digital disruption of slow, rigid traditional manufacturing. Its manufacturing “operating system” is said to be agnostic to hardware technology and materials, enabling the company to quickly adapt to market shifts and user needs.