Volodymyr Usov, a founder and chief executive officer at Odesa-based startup Kwambio that provides an online platform for easy 3D printing, says that everyone will have such a printer at home in the near future.
The main problem with 3D printing now is it is too
complicated for many people.
The first time Usov discovered a 3D printer was at
the IDCEE conference, an annual high-profile technology conference in
Kyiv in
2013. “I asked many questions about how printers work. And even
though I understood what opportunities it can give to the manhood, the biggest
challenge is that regular people cannot understand how you can print a physical
object,” he says.
3D printing involves successive laying of a material in the
shape of a 3D model under the computer control.
By using Kwambio, an online platform, one
can browse 3D models of objects already provided by professional designers,
pick a model, customize its metrics, shape, colors and print it out on a 3D
printer.
Person can choose any object through the online platfrom, customize it and get it out of the printer without waiting for the delivery. © Kwambio
“We could compare our work with an App Store.
Applications
are uploaded by their developers and checked for the necessary qualifications. Same
here – if the models we receive from designers correspond to our system, we
post them for client’s further personalization,” Usov says.
The client pays per print and can
create as many objects as desired. The
designer who developed the model gets 70 percent of the price per object, the
rest is all startup’s.
Right now the technology is available only as a
beta version. Around 1,500 clients from the U.S., U.K., France, Russia
and Ukraine use it now. There are also 20 designers who have already subscribed
to the platform and create 3D models to promote their work.
Kateryna Kolambet, marketing director at Kwambio, says that
many subscribers come from Brooklyn, New York. “It is a center of global
3D printing, overloaded with hipsters, geeks and hackers who are usually
interested in new technologies and are more likely to become first
adopters,” she says. “Many co-working spaces in Brooklyn have their
own 3D printers, so the visitors can come and play. Many designers, who
create models for 3D printing, also come from Brooklyn.”
The startup already had $500,000 in investment
from a local investor in Odesa a year ago and won the IDCEE 2014 start-up
completion prize of more than $17,000 in October. The Times called Kwambio’s
technology “one of a kind.”
Currently the team is preparing for a presentation
at the 3D Print Show this April in New York, after which they plan to open the
platform for public access.
While there are just around 30 people in Ukraine who own 3D
printers, the product doesn’t focus on Ukraine or any specific country.
Printers are expensive everywhere now and randomly people
can afford them. Those that print small consumer products cost around $3,000,
industrial ones can cost over $100,000. Some small printers can be found on
Kickstarter for $500.
Kyiv Post staff writer Bozhena Sheremeta can be reached
at [email protected]. The
Kyiv Post’s IT coverage is sponsored by AVentures Capital, Ciklum, FISON and SoftServe.
