An Ottawa-based search engine for the 3D printing industry has turned to a European angel investor for almost $1 million in funding.
3Dprintler.com’s Tomek Sysak said there are “some limits” on what they can say about the investment announced this week.
“It’s high six figures and not all of it at once,” Mr. Sysak said.
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Initially, he said, 3Dprintler.com has access to 25 per cent of the funding that will be used to integrate more service providers to its platform, allowing it to offer the best quotes possible for its clients.
“Moving forward, we have some benchmarks we have to reach and then we get more,” Mr. Sysak said.
Part of moving forward is to get more American and European providers integrated as well, he said. After that, the plan is to grow the customer base, allowing it to bring on more service providers and continue the cycle.
Mr. Sysak said 3Dprintler.com turned to a European angel because it just didn’t have “the best luck” attracting Canadian investors.
“Canada isn’t the best place for investment in general, especially in Ottawa. It can be tough to get people interested,” he said. “Maybe it’s because we don’t have the density of population.”
Mr. Sysak said the Canadian government has been a source of frustration in the past as well.
“If we go to the Canadian government, hopefully we would be able to find the right connections to get us in with the right industries that might be able to benefit from 3D printing,” he said. “Instead we ended up with people who didn’t really understand anything about what we were doing or even have the, I guess, ability to even get caught up on what we were doing.”
Mr. Sysak is cautiously optimistic that may change with the Trudeau government and its commitment to innovation.
“Innovation is a buzzword. It takes a lot more effort than many people think,” he said.
In the meantime, 3Dprintler.com is moving forward without public sector support and Mr. Sysak said there should be more investment news coming soon.
