Mcor takes 3D printer to retail market
The company behind a new printer that can generate 3D models from ordinary copier paper has secured a deal with a manufacturer that will see its hardware go on the mass market.
Louth-based Mcor Technologies has signed an agreement with US firm Benchmark Electronics that will result in its printers going on sale in Ireland and Britain from January onwards.
The company hopes to begin distribution into the rest of Europe and the US during the second and third quarters of 2010.
Benchmark is one of the world’s bigger outsourced manufacturing specialists and the company has 24 plants in ten different countries, including Ireland.
Mcor secured €750,000 in new investment funding earlier this year from Enterprise Ireland and two private investors.
Conor McCormack, co-founder and chief executive of Mcor, said the funding was intended to secure and finance a manufacturing partner and the new deal represents the ‘‘missing piece of the jigsaw’’ for the company.
While the company had been producing small numbers of 3D printers at its facility in Ireland, a full-sized manufacturing facility was needed for it to start full commercial operations.
Benchmark will produce Mcor’s latest model, the Matrix 300,which is both faster and smaller than previous printers the firm has developed.
‘‘The main thing is that it is up to 50 times cheaper to run than any other 3D printer in the marketplace,” McCormack said.
Mcor has already attracted significant interest in the product, according to McCormack, with firms such as GE Aviation, Nokia and architectural firm Foster & Partners already in discussions with the company.
‘‘Our first deliveries will be in January or February, so the next year will be a big test for us,” he said. ‘‘It will all be about getting the machines out there.”
