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Idealab founder and CEO Bill Gross is heading up yet another LA tech venture - this one in 3D printing.
Gross founded 3D printing tech company New Matter with Steve Schell this year to bring the world a “disruptively inexpensive 3D printer.” At a commercial price of $249, New Matter’s MOD-t printer fits the bill.
But what is really taking MOD-t one step further is the creation of an entire support system around the actual printer like complementary software offerings and an online design file store that connects MOD-t users with talented 3D designers and artists worldwide.
This online marketplace will launch at the end of New Matter’s 35-day Indiegogo campaign to raise $375,000 (which it has already exceeded). During this time, New Matter is also taking MOD-t pre-orders and upping national hype around the product (which it also quickly achieved with coverage from Mashable, CNET and ReCode).
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Local techies though have been rallying around New Matter and MOD-t since its infancy: Joseph Chiu of Toybuilder Labs gave tons of model feedback and members of LA Makerspace helped to refine the product, for example.
Because of this support from the existing makerspace community, LA has been a perfect spot for New Matter to launch: “There are a number of great makerspaces in and around LA, as well as some 3D printing experts and hubs that we’re fond of,” Schell, who serves as New Matter’s President and CTO, said.
Schell, who was an architect for Desktop Factory’s low-cost 3D printer back in 2007, got together with Gross last year to get the New Matter gears turning. Since January, investors like First Round Capital and Alsop Louie have stepped up to back New Matter along with Idealab, frogVentures, Biotechonomy and angel investor Scott Banister.
“Last year Bill Gross and I started discussing the idea of getting back into 3D printing - this time to go after the consumer market, and we spent most of last year evaluating the technical feasibility of creating a disruptively inexpensive 3D printer,” Schell said. “Once I was convinced that this could be done, I dove in headfirst and haven’t looked back.”
