Once upon a time, there was a company called Shapeways, where you could buy and sell physical 3D prints. This doesn’t sound very noteworthy in an age where 8-year-olds are getting ToyBox 3D printers for Christmas. But Shapeways started in 2007, five years before Josef Prusa sold his first 3D printer in an empty pizza box.
Shapeways is an industrial print farm that began in the Netherlands, rapidly grew, moved its headquarters to New York, and by 2012 had a manufacturing plant in Long Island. In 2014, Marleen Vogelaar, one of the original founders, left to pursue other ventures. She said Shapeways lost its way. In 2024, buried in bloat, Shapeways went bankrupt.
