Stratasys Asia Pacific, a subsidiary of Stratasys Ltd. (NASDAQ: SSYS), a global leader of 3D printing and additive manufacturing solutions, recently announced the appointment of Rajiv Bajaj as General Manager, India. Stratasys is also proud to announce the opening of its new office in Bangalore, planned for April, providing local support to the growing demand we note in the region for 3D printing solution. These arrangements signify Stratasys’ commitment to the region, offering accessible 3D printing solutions to the market.

Mr. Bajaj brings more than 18 years of CAD/CAM/PLM solution sales expertise and product management experience to his new role, overseeing the operation of Stratasys’ business in India.

“Rajiv is an active thought leader across India. His understanding of the local market and experience is valuable to us as we capture the opportunities in the Indian market, particularly in the manufacturing sector,” said Ido Eylon, General Manager of Southern Asia & Pacific, Stratasys AP Ltd. “India is a key focus for Stratasys. With a well-established infrastructure, combined with Rajiv’s leadership, we aim to strengthen our leading position in the local market. We will continue to strive for service excellence for both our channel partners and customers; and I am confident that Rajiv will successfully lead the team to accomplish these goals.”

“I am excited to work with an excellent team here,” Rajiv remarked. “Stratasys is a leading player in the 3D printing space and through its innovative technologies and solutions I look forward to expanding its reach across various businesses in the industry in India. 3D printing technology is revolutionizing our world and I expect it to continue transforming the future; I believe Stratasys can enable users in the Indian market to embrace this revolution.”

The new Stratasys India office is located in Ulsoor, Bangalore. Equipped with the latest technologies and 3D printing solutions, the Demo Centre facility will showcase the full product portfolio ranging from desktop 3D printers to advanced 3D production systems, as well as a matrix of specially engineered 3D printing materials.

Stratasys, a world leader in Additive Manufacturing 3D Printing technology in association with DesignTech Systems, one of the largest distributors for Stratasys in India organized a seminar on “Rapid prototyping for rapid product design” for the companies in product design and engineering at Hotel Double tree by Hilton on 26th November 2014.

The event covered the applications and significance of 3D printing in building more robust products faster and better thereby helping companies to stay competitive.

Mr. Ido Eylon, General Manager – South Asia and Pacific, Stratasys commented, “3D Printing offers great advantages to companies that are involved in product design and development, engineering and manufacturing. Creating physical prototypes of products helps companies evaluate and validate the product designs physically, testing them for fit, form and ergonomics. Product design errors can be detected early on in the product development cycle and be addressed right away, significantly reducing the costs and time of design reiterations. Design and development cycle time is compressed, and companies can drastically reduce the time-to-market for their new and innovative products.” Mr. Eylon further added, “Moreover, 3D printing is also widely used in Direct Digital Manufacturing, where companies can produce parts and products for end-use applications, e.g. jigs, fixtures, mold inserts and spare parts. This is ideal for production of unique tailor-made tools or parts, and low volume small batch productions.”

A Stratasys 3D printer was showcased at the event, offering the visitors a chance to see a 3D Printer live in action. A wide array of sample parts printed by various Stratasys 3D printers was displayed, offering the visitors an opportunity to see and touch, and to get a feel for how precise and close to the real life product the prototypes are, and how robust the 3D printed end-use parts are.

Mr. Sanjay Daga, President, DesignTech Systems Ltd expressed his thoughts saying, “Indian product engineering industry due to ever rising competition, higher bargaining power of consumers, and shrinking shelf lives of products, is under constant pressure to innovate, and build better products faster and at minimum costs. The only way companies can expedite their product design and development process without compromising on the quality of product and while ensuring maximum cost effectiveness is, if they adopt new and cutting edge technologies like 3D printing which will help them visualize, share, evaluate their designs with a prototype in hand. This will augment their design creativity, enhance communication as you can now discuss our ideas with a model in hand, evaluate the model by developing functional prototypes and address design errors early in the design cycle that will save huge amounts of time and costs that otherwise the companies would have had to indulge in rectifying the design.

Mr. Daga further added that, Stratasys with their wide range of 3D printers, materials and patented technologies – FDM and PolyJet, can very well address companies’ various design validation needs. DDM can even help companies manufacture and develop products for end-use applications, in a timely and cost-effective manner.

The event was very well received by 120+ audience and product engineering and manufacturing industry of Pune was showcased a new technology that can act as a catalyst and provide thrust and impetus to robust product development in minimum time and costs.

Stratasys Ltd. (NASDAQ: SSYS), a leading global provider of 3D printing and additive manufacturing solutions, today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire privately-held GrabCAD, Inc. in an all-cash transaction. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. The transaction is expected to be completed by the end of September, subject to the fulfillment of customary closing conditions. Upon completion of the transaction, GrabCAD will operate as a unit within the Stratasys Global Products and Technology Group. Hardi Meybaum, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of GrabCAD, will continue to lead GrabCAD within the group.

Founded in 2010 and led by Mr. Meybaum, a visionary entrepreneur and pioneer in 3D CAD cloud collaboration tools, GrabCAD is helping engineers get products to market faster by connecting people, content and technology. GrabCAD offers GrabCAD Workbench, a cloud-based collaboration tool that enables engineers and designers to share, view and manage CAD files and other design data. GrabCAD is also home to a community of more than 1.5 million members from around the world who can access a large public CAD file library as well as connect with other engineers.

The acquisition is expected to enable Stratasys to provide its customers with enhanced collaboration tools and improved accessibility relating to 3D CAD content. The addition of GrabCAD Workbench provides Stratasys with an opportunity to drive communication and ease of use throughout the 3D printing process and grow its technology solutions and user communities.

“The addition of GrabCAD provides Stratasys with a leading cloud-based collaboration platform for engineering teams to manage, share and view CAD files,” said David Reis, Stratasys Chief Executive Officer. “By increasing the collaboration and accessibility of 3D CAD files, we believe we can further accelerate the adoption of 3D printing solutions and Stratasys’ product offerings. Together with GrabCAD, we believe that we will accelerate innovation and provide increased value to a growing universe of customers seeking to utilize 3D printing solutions. We also welcome GrabCAD’s active and important community to the Stratasys family. The potential within our 3D ecosystem is very exciting.”

“GrabCAD was founded to bring the world’s engineers together and help them collaborate to bring better products to market faster,” said Hardi Meybaum, Chief Executive Officer of GrabCAD. “By joining forces with Stratasys, a global leader in 3D printing and additive manufacturing, we believe we can extend the reach of one of the most exciting and innovative design collaboration technologies available. With its broad and growing customer base and worldwide presence, Stratasys can provide more customers around the world with exciting new solutions to meet their design needs.”

Benefits of the Transaction

Through its acquisition of GrabCAD, Stratasys expects to gain:

• Knowledge: With the addition of GrabCAD, Stratasys gains an industry leading team of software professionals with a deep understanding of the needs of designers and engineers.
• Products: GrabCAD’s cloud-based collaboration platform, Workbench, will enable Stratasys to offer customers a solution to drive communication and ease of use throughout the design and 3D printing process. GrabCAD also provides Stratasys with the opportunity to further partner with CAD vendors and other ecosystem partners while offering innovative collaboration tools related to 3D CAD.
• Community: GrabCAD has built a global, leading and fast growing community of mechanical engineers and designers, with 1.5 million users who are passionate about design. This includes a large online community of M-CAD users and a significant public online repository of free CAD files, with more than 500,000 CAD designs available for download and nearly 50,000 file downloads per day.