How VTPM Technology Emerged
Research behind a revolutionary 3D printing technology
5-minute read
From crisis to breakthrough: market opportunities
From 2021 to 2025, the global 3D printing industry underwent fundamental changes. Many expected rapid market growth, but instead it faced a historic contraction, with actual market size proving 23 times smaller than initial forecasts. However, this crisis created exceptional opportunities for Versatile Thermoplastics Particle Manufacturing (VTPM) technology.
The collapse of traditional leaders tells a clear story: In July 2025, Desktop Metal declared bankruptcy. Velo3D was delisted after losing 99.8% of its value. Industry giants like Stratasys and 3D Systems saw their market capitalization plummet by 78.8% and 94.3% respectively. The causes were systemic — a perfect storm of excessive optimism, rising interest rates that choked CapEx budgets, the collapse of IPO and SPAC bubbles. But most critically, though overlooked by analysts, was the disconnect between new technological capabilities and actual industrial demand. Real industrial demand emerges when innovators can offer manufacturers something they can use right now — something relatively simple and obviously beneficial to production.
Yet beneath the wreckage lay an undeniable truth: industry and academia needed industrial 3D printing solutions more than ever. The question was not whether the market existed, but why existing solutions had failed to address it.
Diagnosing the real problems in the industry
This market paradox, visible to us as early as 2017 at the peak of the additive technology boom, prompted comprehensive analysis of the root causes preventing industrial adoption of 3D printing. The research revealed systemic barriers that no incremental improvement could overcome:
Lack of standards and unified language
The emerging additive manufacturing industry necessarily operated without common terminology, quality metrics or performance standards. Engineers from different sectors were literally speaking different languages when discussing 3D printing.
Gaps in implementation methodology
The additive solutions being created excelled in technological demonstration but struggled with the practical reality of factory floor integration. The leap from laboratory success to production implementation remained largely unbridged.
Structural misalignment
Industrial customers needed the flexibility, sustainability and cost-effectiveness they were accustomed to. Existing equipment — designed for limited material options, and requiring complex setup and expensive proprietary consumables — could not deliver these basic requirements.
Missing knowledge infrastructure
Organizations attempting to adopt 3D printing lacked access to specialized expertise. Training was inadequate, best practices were not codified, and the learning curve was steep and expensive.
An entirely new concept, not just evolution
Rather than attempting to optimize existing approaches, our research team, very experienced in manufacturing, asked a different question: if we could design an industrial 3D printing solution from scratch, knowing everything we now know about what industry actually needs, what would it look like?
The answer was VTPM technology, built on fundamentally different principles.
Material versatility
Instead of being locked into expensive proprietary filaments or limited material choices, VTPM works with standard industrial thermoplastic granules and composites based on them. This not only dramatically reduces material costs but enables users to blend materials of their choosing and reuse their own materials and recycled polymers, radically expanding possibilities while delivering environmental benefits. Add to this the ability to print with special mixtures that allow creation of ceramic and metal objects through subsequent processing, and you see how wide this material range truly is.
True industrial scale
With a working volume of 1785 × 1200 × 960 mm and the ability to handle composite materials reinforced with carbon fiber, glass and other materials, VTPM addresses genuinely large-format industrial requirements, not just rapid prototyping.
Precision combined with speed
Achieving accuracy of 100 micrometers in the XY plane and 50 micrometers on the Z-axis at maximum speed for specific materials and technical parameters, with high acceleration and deceleration, represents a technical achievement that eliminates the traditional gap between precision and production speed.
Plug-and-produce simplicity
The equipment was deliberately designed with an intuitive interface requiring minimal and straightforward user customization. This was not merely a feature — it was a fundamental design principle reflecting years of research into what prevents adoption.
Universal scientific and production equipment
In creating VTPM technology, we followed the principle of first creating equipment with practically ideal (if difficult-to-achieve) parameters, so it could be used as truly scientific equipment. Modern materials science is developing rapidly, and for experiments scientists need the widest range of settings and practically “omnivorous,” “indestructible” equipment.
Market validation and scaling potential
We assessed market opportunities for VTPM in 2025 based on published quantitative evaluations from Wohlers Associates and other researchers. Analysis of global demand for 3D printing across scientific and industrial applications indicates:
Market size (2025)
$29.2 billion globally, with industrial applications comprising 69.5%.
Current TAM for thermoplastic 3D printing (2025)
$15.4 billion (a 24% decline in industrial shipments in 2024 created space for innovation).
Projected demand by 2026
800 machines (680 industrial, 120 scientific)
Projected demand by 2030
2,800 machines (2,300 industrial, 500 scientific)
This translates to a Total Addressable Market for VTPM of $2.4 billion by 2026 and $5.7 billion by 2030 under realistic market penetration scenarios.
Three development paths
The research identified three market development scenarios based on adoption rates and regional expansion:
Pessimistic scenario
Slow launch with financing and adaptation challenges yields a TAM of $1.72 billion by 2030, supported by 10-20 competence centers globally.
Realistic scenario
Coordinated launch of competence centers in partnership with governments and R&D institutions creates a TAM of $3.16 billion by 2030, with 20-80 regional centers and the launch of the 3D.Inc digital platform.
Optimistic scenario
Active government support and rapid center expansion generates a TAM of $5.7 billion by 2030, with 26-104 competence centers worldwide.
The competence center model: bridging the gap
The research revealed that direct equipment sales alone would be insufficient. Instead, VTPM’s market entry strategy centers on regional Centers of Excellence — specialized hubs designed to solve the adaptation gap that has plagued industrial 3D printing adoption.
These centers accomplish several critical functions:
1. Training and certification of engineers and operators.
2. Applied research in materials and applications specific to regional industries.
3. Real-world validation of technology performance in production environments.
4. Knowledge transfer that bridges the laboratory-to-factory gap.
5. Best practice codification that becomes the foundation for industry standards.
The research timeline indicates launch of the first competence center in Georgia (Q2 2026), followed by expansion to North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific throughout 2026-2027. This geographic progression reflects both market potential and the critical importance of intellectual property protection — a finding that led to strategic recommendations about market entry sequencing.
Intellectual property and market entry strategy
The research included objective assessment of intellectual property risks across major markets. Analysis of patent infringement statistics and legal frameworks identified zones of significant risk.
High risk: countries with documented histories of retroactive patent registration and weak enforcement of international IP agreements.
Preferred entry markets: jurisdictions with established legal frameworks, transparent patent systems and strong enforcement records.
This finding directly shaped recommendations that VTPM prioritize North America, Europe and developed Asia-Pacific markets for initial deployment, with careful monitoring protocols for expansion into higher-risk jurisdictions.
The 3D.Inc platform: completing the ecosystem
Parallel to VTPM hardware development, the research identified a critically missing element: a global digital platform connecting customers with 3D printing specialists and best-practice knowledge.
The result is 3D.Inc, designed as a comprehensive digital hub that enables:
· Demand matching: organizations seeking 3D printing solutions can connect with specialized service providers.
· Remote execution: complex manufacturing tasks can be coordinated across global facilities.
· Knowledge sharing: best practices, material databases and application libraries become accessible to the entire ecosystem.
· Technology promotion: real-world success stories create the proof points that drive broader adoption.
Launched in conjunction with the first competence centers, 3D.Inc transforms VTPM from an isolated technology into a comprehensive industrial ecosystem.
Opportunity from adversity
The research journey that led to VTPM demonstrates how industry crisis, when analyzed with intellectual rigor, reveals opportunity. The 2021-2025 contraction in 3D printing was not market failure — it was the market correcting for years of misalignment between technological capabilities and practical needs.
VTPM, emerging from this analytical crucible, represents not an incremental improvement but a fundamental reconception of what industrial 3D printing should be: universal in material capability, intelligent in design, scalable in production, and integrated into an ecosystem that bridges the gap between innovation and adoption.
The research suggests that the window of market opportunity created by the retreat of major players remains open — but only briefly. The coming years will determine whether VTPM can establish the competence center infrastructure and market presence necessary to capture the enormous TAM identified by this analysis.
For organizations considering participation in this transformation, the research offers a clear conclusion: the question is no longer whether industrial 3D printing with thermoplastics is viable. That question has been answered. The question now is who will lead the transformation.
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About this article
This article synthesizes research conducted by Advanced Engineering Intellectual Property (AEIP) analyzing the global industrial 3D printing market, the systemic barriers to adoption, and the development path of Versatile Thermoplastics Particle Manufacturing (VTPM) technology.
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