Stratasys was founded in 1989 by S. Scott Crump. He got the idea for additive manufacturing while building a toy for his daughter using a glue gun with a mix of polyethylene and candle wax. He filed a patent for fused deposit modelling (FDM) and began to operate commercially in 1990.
FDM technology 3D printers had the most sales in 2003 and Stratasys held 44% of the worldwide additive manufacturing systems market in 2007.
In 2011, Stratasys acquired Solidscape, which makes 3D wax printers for lost wax casting applications. In 2012, Stratasys merged with Objet Geometries, the manufacturer of Polyjet and Multijet 3D printers.
In 2014, personal printer manufacturer FDM Makerbot announced that Stratasys had purchased it for $403 million.
Paradoxically, Stratasys is both an inventor of 3D printing as well asone of the sector’s first companies to lose some of its key patents. Its primary FDM manufacturing patent became public domain in 2009, which enabled many players to develop FFF (fused filament fabrication) 3D printers. This is now the nameassociated to this technology when it does not belong to Stratasys.