Desktop Metal

3D printing / manufacturingUSA

New to Unitard

💀 Dead / Bankrupt

Peak $7.5 BillionToday

~-98%

from peak

🦄
Became a unicorn
2020
📈
Peak valuation
$7.5 Billion ’21
💔
Became a Unitard
2022
💸
Last valuation
Wiped out

Capital raised

$438M

Total raised

$170K/day

Raised per day

Total raised averaged per day over approximately 7.0 years from founding to bankruptcy or shutdown. This is not measured cash burn. Methodology

Funding: PitchBook via press / company PR

Current status

Acquired by Nano Dimension for ~$179M (closed April 2025), then filed Chapter 11 ~117 days later; assets liquidated for ~$7M.

The rise & fall

9 moments · 2015–2025

The key moments, with employee sentiment along the way.

2015

Founded out of MIT circles

Ric Fulop and a bench of MIT professors set out to bring metal 3D printing to the mainstream.

TechCrunch

Dec 2020

Goes public at $2.5B

Merges with Trine Acquisition Corp — an early ride on the SPAC wave.

SEC filing

2021

The peak: ~$7.5B in the SPAC frenzy$7.5B

The 3D-printing bubble crests; flush with stock, the company buys rivals like ExOne and EnvisionTEC.

Macrotrends

2022

Falls out of the club

Demand never scales, cash burns, and the market cap sinks under $1B.

Macrotrends

Sep 2023

Stratasys merger collapses

The proposed tie-up dies when Stratasys shareholders vote it down.

Reuters

2022–24

From the inside · Glassdoor reviews, 2022–24

Glassdoor reviews traced the unraveling: employees described an acquisition spree with no integration plan that gutted once-profitable startups, counted repeated waves of layoffs, and watched the 401(k) match vanish as leadership chased profitability.

Apr 2025

Acquired by Nano Dimension for ~$179M$179M

The deal closes after a court fight — about 2% of the peak valuation.

SEC filing

Jul 2025

Chapter 11 — joins the Unitard Club 💔

Roughly 117 days after the acquisition closes, the new owner puts Desktop Metal into bankruptcy.

Court filing

2025

Core assets sold for ~$7M

A company once worth ~$7.5B fetches about a thousandth of that in liquidation.

Court filing

$7.32Bof peak value erased · 7 years

💬 entries paraphrase anonymous, unverified reviews posted publicly on Glassdoor ↗; dated facts carry their source.

How it happened

Desktop Metal aimed to bring metal 3D printing to the mainstream, going public via a 2020 SPAC merger at a $2.5B valuation — its market value briefly soaring near $7.5B. Demand never scaled; it burned cash buying rivals like ExOne and EnvisionTEC, a proposed Stratasys merger collapsed, and the stock cratered.

Nano Dimension bought Desktop Metal for about $179M in April 2025, only for it to file Chapter 11 117 days later — core assets sold for around $7M.

Source: SEC / elevenflo / TechTime ($2.5B SPAC valuation via Trine Acquisition Corp Dec 2020, briefly ~$7.5B; Nano Dimension acquisition $179.3M closed April 2 2025; Chapter 11 ~117 days later, core assets sold for ~$7M)