3D-printed smartphone cases

Our story started in 2013 in a small cellar in Munich. Felix Ewald and Philipp Kramer founded the 3D-printing agency Trindo and sold 3D-printed smartphone covers in the  corporate design of large companies – but what would be the story of a startup without some initial difficulties? Trindo had to take back the first 200 smartphone cases as the color faded and dyed their customers’ trouser pockets. During the search for a solution, the two young founders quickly discovered the great potential of a technology for the industrial coloring of 3D-printed plastics. The idea to develop an own coloring solution was born.

First DyeMansion logo

Since then, the whole team has been working on the development of an industrial coloring solution, leaving the smartphone cases behind. Trindo became DyeMansion (to dye = coloring, mansion = house) and an on-demand coloring service was launched - DyeMansion customers were able to have their 3D-printed plastics dyed in the Munich "DyeMansion" from then on.

Every vision needs someone to support it. Dr. Hans Langer, founder of EOS, the global leader in industrial 3D-printing systems, recognized the potential behind our vision and invested in spring 2015 through his investment holding AM Ventures. Arno Held's team encouraged us during the development phase of our industrial colouring solution and provided crucial food for thought on our first steps. 

First DM60 delivery to a customer

Less than nine months later, we celebrated the world premiere of our first own hardware system at the Formnext exhibition in Frankfurt. There we presented the DM60 as the world's first automated coloring solution for 3D-printed plastics and won the Formnext Start-up Challenge with the system. Following the exhibition, we started a pilot phase with selected customers such as FKM and Materialise. 

Moving in our own mansion

Increasing incoming orders in the On-Demand service, the expansion of the DyeMannschaft and our big plans for the future naturally needed their place. We found it in summer 2016 with our new mansion in Planegg near Munich. Since then, we call the 2500 square meters including laboratory and storage space our mansion.

Our first own booth at Formnext 2016

It quickly became clear that 3D-printed end-use applications require more than just color. In order to improve the surface quality of the plastics and reduce the amount of manual work our customers have to do, we expanded our product portfolio in November 2016 with the world premiere of the DyeMansion Powershot series. A year after the market launch of our DM60, this system was also launched during Formnext in Frankfurt. 

German Accelerator Pitch 2017

With our innovative hardware product portfolio, we stood out from the crowd amongst many other German startups in 2017 and won the German Accelerator Tech, a program of the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology to promote German tech startups on their way to the US market. We took our first taste of American air and spent the summer of 2017 with experienced mentors in Silicon Valley in preparation for our market launch in the United States. It was a very educative and inspiring time!

DyeMansion Print-to-Product family 2017

With many new ideas from Silicon Valley and valuable feedback from our first customers, we used the phrase DyeMansion Print-to-Product workflow for the first time in the fall of 2017 when we talked about our three systems for cleaning, surfacing and coloring of 3D-printed plastics. In combination with the DM60, the Powershots complemented our product portfolio so well, that we were able to offer our customers an end-to-end process chain for the post-processing of their parts From the raw part to a high-value product! With this complete solution we quickly became the world market leader for Additive Manufacturing finishing systems. 

LTR: Felix Ewald, Adrian Keppler, & Philipp Kramer at the EOS Headquarter in Krailling, Germany. Picture: Tobias Hase

DyeMansion and EOS, the world leader in industrial 3D printing systems, have been in a strategic partnership since November 2017. Our partnership combines the production and post-processing of 3D-printed products. EOS not only uses our Print-to-Product workflow at its headquarters in Krailling or Pflugerville, TX, but also supports us in serving customers around the world. Until today many exciting customer projects have already resulted from this partnership.

Our DyeMansion North America Team

In May 2018, we laid the foundation for our market presence in the United States by founding DyeMansion North America Inc., attending the first 3D-printing events in America and establishing a local team on-site.

Make three out of one: After the seed funding from AM Ventures, two new investors joined us in September 2018. The financial investors Unternehmertum Venture Capital Partners (UVC partners) and btov Partners followed AM Ventures and supported us with a $5 M Series A funding. This allowed us to further expand our global business and to extend the Print-to-Product workflow with new products.

In order to offer our customers more finishing options, we presented a new surfacing process at Formnext 2018 - VaporFuse Surfacing, the Clean Vapor technology for parts challenging injection molding. The process works sustainable and safe for users and their environment. It is particularly suitable for flexible plastics that require sealed surfaces. 

With the launch of our extended color line Colors^X including special offers for automotive and lifestyle products, we responded primarily to the requirements of our customers. The launch was marked by the colors Automotive Black^X, a light and heat resistant color for automotive interior parts and four new neon colors.

YUNS visiting our HQ in Munich

The partnership with YUNS, our first authorized reseller in the Asia-Pacific region, is an important step in our global expansion. Together with YUNS we can offer the complete AM process chain in the Chinese market and enable new applications with 3D-printing. YUNS not only distributes our systems, but also provides consulting services and supports our service organization on site in China.

In autumn 2019, our strategic partnership with ALSO became public. Together we signed a contract for the Europe-wide distribution of our systems. Besides our systems, ALSO offers more than 550 vendors of hardware, software and IT-services access to over 100.000 buyers, who can call a broad spectrum of other customized services in the logistics, finance, and IT services sectors, as well as traditional distribution services. Among their portfolio are also solutions from HP and Materialise. Together with ALSO we organized the first "Open Mansion Day" for potential resellers at our HQ in September.

As every year, Formnext 2019 was an important milestone for us. During our first official press conference we unveiled the new Powerfuse S system. It’s the system behind VaporFuse Surfacing, the first clean vapor technology for injection molded parts. The Powerfuse S complements our existing Print-to-Product workflow and opens up completely new fields of application for 3D- printed products.

We developed the the first ever color range with 17 vibrant colors that bring grey HP Multi Jet Fusion parts to life.

In summer 2020, we launched the largest industrial Post-Processing Platform for Additive Manufacturing worldwide – featuring all our production and sales partners.

Nordic Alpha Partners (NAP) from Denmark joins our existing investors UVC Partners, btov Partners, KGAL, and AM Ventures.

We have been selected by the European Innovation Council (EIC) for the Horizon 2020 program to fulfill the European Climate Goals with our Powerfuse S.

The industrialization and automation of the entire Additive Manufacturing value chain is a major task that can only be accomplished together. Through this new global partnership with Siemens, we are perfectly positioned to further spearhead the transformation of manufacturing.