GE ups its digital game, snaring two 3-D printing companies

General Electric (GE) announced Tuesday that it plans to buy two European 3-D printing companies.

Its customers are in the aerospace and healthcare industries. Arcam, with approximately 285 employees, generated $68 million in revenues in 2015 from its customers in the aerospace and healthcare industries.

Mr. Joyce said additive designs enabled GE to eliminate 845 parts from the design of a new turboprop engine it will launch in 2018, significantly cutting the engine’s weight.

Swedish tech company Arcam soared on the Stockholm exchange on Tuesday after U.S. giant General Electric (GE) announced million-dollar plans to buy the 3D printing specialist.

GE’s potential acquisitions of Arcam and SLM marks a seminal moment for industrial 3D printing, according to Rick Smith, co-founder and CEO of Fast Radius, an on-demand manufacturing company backed by UPS. “It will benefit from the GE Store and our core engineering capability”. Germany’s SLM Solutions (ETR:AM3D) and Sweden’s Arcam AB (STO:ARCM) are the targets for a combined $1.4 billion takeover. Joyce will lead the growth of these businesses in the additive manufacturing equipment and services industry.

The two aforementioned companies supply additive manufacturing equipment that is expected to add value to GE’s existing 3D printing portfolio.

General Electric is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. GE posted revenues of $140.39bn in 2015. The US company is buying into Arcam’s claim that its technology using electron beams to melt metal powder into firm objects is superior to competing laser-based processes.

GE’s aviation division is looking to print more than 100,000 jet-engine parts by 2020. With this acquisition, GE will now have spent $2.9 billion on 3D printing, or additive manufacturing, since 2010, leading to a total of 346 patents. More than 11,000 of such engines are now on order with up to 20 fuel nozzles in each, the company stated, with production expected to rise to more than 40,000 fuel nozzles by 2020.

“We feel that GE is a strong industrial owner, which makes us stronger than the rather fractionalized ownership we have today”, Rene said.

GE (NYSE: GE) is the world’s Digital Industrial Company, transforming industry with software-defined machines and solutions that are connected, responsive and predictive.

GE said it will acquire Swedish Arcam and German SLM Solutions Group for $1.4 billion, with premiums of 37% and 53%, respectively.