In a deal just announced this week, Bioverge portfolio company Volumetric has entered into an agreement for acquisition by 3D Systems (NASDAQ: DDD). 

We could not be more thrilled for the Volumetric team and for participating Bioverge investors on the successful exit!

We first met Volumetric co-founders Jordan and Bagrat two years ago on the outskirts of Rice University. We were immediately blown away by what they were doing in the lab at the time, seeding living cells on bioprinted tissue scaffolds with never before seen resolution and complexity, and further entranced by their shared passion and conviction to realize the promise of engineered tissues and organs.

We participated in the company’s seed round in mid 2020 at a ~$10M valuation. Here’s a peek at our original Volumetric deal memo. We strapped in for what was assuredly to be a long, arduous journey, but felt strongly that if there was a single bioprinting team and technology out there capable of innovating their way to whole organs, it was this one.

Since that investment, it’s fair to say that the Volumetric team never once relented on that conviction nor took their foot off the gas. Instead, they jumped from one milestone to the next - from publishing their work and being featured on the cover of Science, to getting accepted into YC, to entering multi-year collaborations with major strategic partners, to opportunistic in-licensing of emerging IP, to going dark for few months’ tech sprint only to emerge with a 60x improvement on what was already the world’s most advanced bioprinter, and a strategic plan outlined to get us to bioprinted whole organs. And now this, just 18 months later, an acquisition by industry powerhouse, 3D Biosystems, in a deal valued up to $400M.

It’s been an amazing ride!

While we are grateful to have been there for the early stages of this incredible journey, we remain confident that joining forces with 3D Biosystems is only just the beginning for the Volumetric team and technology platform, and the future impact that both will have on the world. 

Congrats again to the Volumetric team and best of luck in your new digs. Onward and upward!