Sigma Labs eyes 'new era' of expansion

Teya Vitu, The Santa Fe New Mexican
·2 min read

May 9—After 12 years of being ahead of its time with metal 3D printer-quality monitoring technology, Santa Fe-based Sigma Labs said it is at the right place at the right time for a major expansion.

Until now, the company has been working in research and development and testing a handful of its PrintRite3D software systems at high-profile companies such as Airbus, Mitsubishi and Lockheed Martin, and at the U.S. Department of Energy. About 40 to 60 PrintRite3D systems are out and about, each individually installed in metal 3D printers.

Now Sigma Labs is in talks with an unnamed client to install PrintRite3D on an "enterprise level" that could add up to "tens or hundreds" of sales of its software systems.

PrintRite3D technology detects defects and irregularities in real time in the metal 3D printing process.

"The first quarter of 2022 is the beginning of a new era for Sigma Labs," President and CEO Jacob Brunsberg said. "[Now is] an era in which we move from one-off project sales to one that we believe is accessible at scale for supporting qualification and production across thousands of machines at hundreds of customer sites."

Sigma Labs this year is transitioning into a subscription software company, aiming to make PrintRite3D downloadable to hundreds of metal 3D printers at a company rather than laboriously installed in one or two individual printers.

Sigma Labs also is starting talks with metal 3D printer manufacturers to include its technology as a standard feature in new printers.

The company has 40 employees and saw revenue of $1.7 million in 2021, a number that has doubled each of the last several years with potential to keep doubling, Chairman and prior CEO Mark Ruport said.

Brunsberg said there are about 12,000 metal 3D printers in industries around the world.

"We want to address more than 10 percent of the market by 2025," Brunsberg said. "If we address 3 percent of the market, it's $25 million in recurring revenue."

Sigma Labs, founded in 2010, is one of the few publicly traded companies based in New Mexico.