Glowforge 3D Laser Printer Sets Record for Biggest Crowdfunding Campaign

Designers, Makers, and Educators Pre­orders Total More than $21
Million

SEATTLE–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Glowforge
the 3D laser printer has set a record for the most­funded one month
crowdfunding campaign in history with more than $21,000,000 in
pre­orders. The previous record was held by Pebble Time, which raised
$20,338,986 on Kickstarter in one month. The Glowforge crowdfunding
campaign is still ongoing until Friday, October 23 at 6 pm PST.

Glowforge debuted to the public for the first time at September 24th at
World Maker Faire New York. At the event, Glowforge was awarded three
Make Editor’s Choice Awards and made more than 150 prints in a single
day. Even though most prints take less than five minutes, lines
stretched around the booth and wait times exceeded two hours.

“We are blown away. We needed to raise $100,000 to place our factory
order. I was optimistic that this might even be a million­dollar
campaign,” said Glowforge CEO and cofounder, Dan Shapiro. “We hit that
in the first day. We’re now getting pre­orders for a Glowforge every
minute. We hoped that our vision of a simple device that could print
anything from furniture to handbags to sushi would get people excited.
We had no idea people would be this excited. Now, with the campaign just
about over, the only thing that matters to us is delighting our
customers with a product that’s even better than they were expecting, as
quickly as we can.”

With a team of just 14 (but growing quickly), the company went overnight
from a stealthy startup to front­page news with unprecedented attention
from a community of makers, designers, educators, and artisans.
Customers from more than 70 countries have pre­ordered Glowforges for
use in their homes, schools, nonprofits, and makerspaces for uses
ranging from woodworking to chocolatiering. As word got out, fans
started arriving unannounced at Glowforge headquarters, driving from as
far away as Canada and Portland to ask for a peek at the printers. An
open house had lines down the block, printing everything from an octopus
to a marriage proposal (he said yes). The event was attended by more
than 100 people who came to see Glowforge in­person for the first time,
in addition to several hundred who attended virtually via livestream.

Also putting the machine through its paces were skeptical journalists
from around the country. “We knocked on Glowforge’s Seattle office
doors, fully intending to squint, furrow, and cast doubt upon this sales
pitch. Instead, we left the office seeing something that actually
exists—and salivating at what the Glowforge can already do,” said Ars
Technica editor Sam Machkonech, in a recent article.

Glowforge plans to ship pre­ordered units in the first half of 2016.
International shipping is available to more than 100 countries and
pre­orders can be placed at http://glowforge.com.
Glowforge previously raised $9 million in funding from Foundry Group,
True Ventures, and executives from Google and MakerBot.

About Glowforge

Glowforge is a Seattle­based startup that makes a 3D laser printer.
Glowforge’s wireless desktop laser makes it simple for designers and
engineers to take products directly from digital design to reality.
Unlike 3D printers that build objects out of plastic, Glowforge uses
lasers to print products out of durable and beautiful materials like
wood, leather, acrylic, paper and fabric. Leveraging advanced software
stored in the cloud instead of expensive hardware, Glowforge is both
affordable and easy to use. For more information, please visit http://glowforge.com/.

Contacts

Glowforge
Bailey Nelson, 360-286-7535
press@glowforge.com