Specialty chemicals firm ALTANA has announced the sale of its stake in inkjet 3D printer manufacturer dp polar to 3D Systems.

The purchase price has not been disclosed, but it follows 3D Systems’ acquisitions of Oqton, Titan Robotics, Kumovis, Allevi and Additive Works in the last couple of years. Though it has sold its stake in dp polar, ALTANA will continue to further advance its Cubic Ink 3D printing product families for material jetting.

ALTANA invested in dp polar in 2017 and has since worked with the start-up to develop the AMpolar i1 and i2 3D printing systems which feature continuously rotating print platforms. These print platforms have been designed to cater for both prototyping and series production, boast a 1 square metre and 2 square metre printing area, respectively, and can print layer thicknesses between 4-25 µm.  The company announced in 2020 that it uses Xaar 1003 printheads to jet materials onto its platform to produce parts such as electronic power-plugs in the automotive space.

After five years supporting the growth of dp polar, ALTANA has now decided to sell its stake in the firm, with 3D Systems integrating the company into its extensive 3D printing offering.

“We were happy to support dp polar both as an investor and as a development partner over the last five years and thank dp polar and its teams for the successful cooperation. The close teamwork between mechanical engineering, machine development, and material development made it possible to create new opportunities for serial production in additive manufacturing and develop individual solutions for our customers and their specific requirements”, commented Dr. Petra Severit, Chief Technology Officer of ALTANA AG. “Now it’s time for dp polar to move ahead to a new growth stage with an industry partner such as 3D Systems specialised in 3D printing hardware, while our customers will continue to benefit from our great solution expertise in the development of innovative resilient high-performance materials as well as our experience in the formulation of high-performance inkjet inks.”

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