Markforged

2014–2016

The company began as a start-up at SolidWorks World 2014 in San Diego with a working prototype of the "Mark One" printer, capable of printing in continuous carbon fiber , fiberglass, nylon and polylactic acid . Production machines can also print kevlar.At the 2015 Consumer Electronics Show, Markforged unveiled its cloud-based 3D printing software Eiger, which allowed for easier collaboration for a team through a cloud-based workflow process.

2017

At the 2017 Consumer Electronics Show, Markforged unveiled the Metal X, which is a 3D printer capable of 3D printing metal parts at a low cost, under $100k. The process has been referred to as ADAM technology and it has an in-process laser inspection for dimensional accuracy. Metal 3D printers at the time cost between $500,000 and $1 million.

2018

In March 2018, Markforged was sued by a rival 3D-printer manufacturer, Desktop Metal, which claimed intellectual property theft and patent infringement in regard to methods patented by Desktop Metal involving "adding layers of an easily removed material to a printed metal product". A finding in favor of Markforged was rendered in the patent infringement case in July 2018.

2019

In January 2019, a new UL Standard, 2904, "ANSI/CAN/UL Standard Method for Testing and Assessing Particle and Chemical Emissions from 3D Printers", was published Markforged noted in October 2019 that it was pursuing certification against this new standard, claiming that it uses "a plastic compound that generates lower emissions than many competing machines". In December 2019, Markforged appointed Shai Terem as president and chief operating officer. Terem joined the team from Kornit Digital, a digital printing company specialising in textiles, where he was president of the Americas region. Terem had previous experience in additive manufacturing, having worked at Stratasys years before.

2020

In early 2020, Markforged became the first known additive manufacturing platform to achieve ISO/IEC 27001 Certification. ISO/IEC 27001:2013 is an Information Security Management System standard published by the International Organization for Standardization and the International Electrotechnical Commission . The certification was applied to Markforged's hardware and Eiger cloud and fleet management software, showing that they meet rigorous international standards in privacy, confidentiality and integrity. In February 2020, the company began to market a 3D-printer system capable of printing pure copper, a version of the company's "Metal X" system; the methodology had been in development for some time and involves the use of plastic-encapsulated copper pellets as the raw material.During the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, Markforged helped to produce over 6,000 face shields in the first three months and partnered with a company called Neurophotometrics to produce Fiberflex Rayon, a 3D printed nasopharyngeal swab for use in diagnostic testing for COVID-19. The effort was renamed Swab56, which developed 55 prototypes over the course of 36 hours before a final design was reached. In October, Markforged announced that Terem was promoted to chief executive officer and president, while the founder Gregory Mark had moved to the role of chairman. The company also announced the launch of The Digital Forge, a cloud-based platform that the company states is the first industrial Additive Manufacturing platform leveraging AI.