Carbon

Digital manufacturing / 3D printingUSA

New to Unitard

✂️ Markdown

Peak $2.4 BillionToday

~-95%

from peak

🦄
Became a unicorn
2015
📈
Peak valuation
$2.4 Billion ’19
💔
Became a Unitard
2025
💸
Last valuation
~$120M

Current status

Operating; Fidelity Contrafund marks its stake about 95% below its late-2021 level in SEC filings, and a Nov-2025 round carried no disclosed valuation

The rise & fall

6 moments · 2013–2026

The key moments.

2013

Founded in Redwood City

Chemist Joseph DeSimone co-founds Carbon around its resin-based CLIP 3D-printing process.

Crunchbase

Jun 2019

$260M Series E at a $2.4B valuation$2.4B

A round co-led by Madrone and Baillie Gifford sets the peak.

Crunchbase

2023

Growth slows after the 3D-printing boom

Hardware-subscription adoption cools and layoffs follow.

Bicycle Retailer

Jun 2026

Fidelity marks it down ~95%$115M

Fidelity Contrafund’s SEC filings value its Carbon stake about 95% below late 2021, implying ~$115M.

SEC N-PORT

Today

Still private — the funds keep marking

Fidelity Contrafund K6 marks it at $1.41/share · -96% from its peak mark · as of Jun 2026

SEC NPORT-P

How it happened

Carbon, co-founded in Redwood City in 2013 by the chemist Joseph DeSimone, makes industrial 3D printers built on its resin-based CLIP process and reached a $2.4B valuation on a $260M Series E in June 2019, co-led by Madrone and Baillie Gifford. Growth in hardware subscriptions and factory adoption slowed after the additive-manufacturing boom.

Fidelity Contrafund, which holds Series D and E shares, has marked its stake down in SEC filings from about $29.5M at the end of 2021 to about $1.4M by mid-2026, a decline of roughly 95%.

A $60M round in November 2025 from existing backers carried no disclosed valuation, as the company pushed toward cash-flow breakeven rather than a new high mark.

Glassdoor reviews were mixed-to-positive but noted layoffs and leadership concerns as the company's growth slowed.

Employee accounts paraphrase anonymous, unverified reviews posted publicly on Glassdoor ↗. See our methodology.

Mutual-fund markdowns

2 funds · SEC NPORT-P

How U.S. mutual funds fair-value this still-private company in their quarterly SEC filings.

Per-share mark from peak

-96%

Fidelity Contrafund K6

$33.86 → $1.41

as of Jun 2026

Fund	Class	$/sh	From peak	As of
Fidelity Contrafund K6		$1.41	-96%	Jun 2026
Fidelity Contrafund		$1.41	-95%	Jun 2026

Source: SEC EDGAR Form NPORT-P (Level-3 fair-value marks). Per-share marks reflect the fund’s own valuation of a specific share class and aren’t a company-wide valuation. Last refreshed Oct 2026.

Source: Crunchbase (Jun 25, 2019): a $260M Series E at a ~$2.4B post-money, co-led by Madrone Capital Partners and Baillie Gifford (Temasek, Arkema new); a $1B+ Series C in 2015. SEC Form N-PORT: Fidelity Contrafund held 915,425 Series D and 81,735 Series E preferred shares ("CARBON INC SER D/E PC PERP PP") worth $29.52M at Dec 31, 2021 (Series E at $29.95); from Dec 2025 the same ~998K shares are filed as a single "CARBON INC" line, marked at $1.41 ($1.41M) at Jun 30, 2026. That is about -95% on position value, implying ~$115M against the $2.4B peak. Earlier scans missed these marks because Fidelity files Carbon under share-class names. Bicycle Retailer (Nov 13, 2025): a $60M round led by existing investors (Sequoia, Silver Lake, adidas, Baillie Gifford, Madrone, Northgate), with no valuation disclosed. Founded 2013; co-founders include Joseph DeSimone (founding CEO) and Philip DeSimone (now CEO).

Founders

Joseph DeSimone
co-founder & founding CEO (2014-2019)
No public profile matched
Philip DeSimone
co-founder & CEO (since 2022)
Still there — Co-Founder, Office of the CEOLinkedIn ↗
Alexander Ermoshkin
co-founder
No public profile matched