Tencent invests in Tzozoo. The 3D printing market is extremely competitive: Is DJI the real big winner behind the scenes?

Established just five years ago, it has won the championship in global desktop 3D printer sales for three consecutive years recently and is hailed as one of the fastest-growing companies of the 2020 generation in China. This company is called Bambu Lab, and its founding team members Tao Ye, Gao Xiufeng, Liu Huaiyu, Chen Zihan, and Wu Wei all come from DJI Innovation.

According to a report by Yingke, Bambu Lab is close to completing a new round of financing, with Tencent participating. The company's valuation may reach $10 billion. When the media verified the above information with Bambu Lab and Tencent, both sides said that the news was false.

In 2024, Bambu Lab's revenue was about 6 billion RMB, with a shipment volume of about 1.2 million units, and it held about 29% of the global consumer 3D printer market share.

Bambu A1 (Source: Bambu Lab)

Tencent and DJI Set Their Sights on the 3D Printing Track

A report from Precedence Research shows that the global 3D printer market reached $24.61 billion in 2024, and it is expected to have a compound annual growth rate of 18.5% from 2024 to 2034.

More optimistic data predicts that the annual shipment volume of the global consumer 3D printer market will increase from the current more than 4 million units to 20 million units in the next five years, and then to 50 million units in the following five years.

Before the arrival of a larger-scale application wave, the "battle of taking sides" in the consumer 3D printer market has already begun.

As the current industry leader, Bambu Lab previously cooperated with Tencent. In July this year, Bambu Lab reached a comprehensive cooperation with Tencent Cloud, and its 3D model platform MakerWorld was fully connected to Tencent's Hunyuan 3D generation model.

The reduction of the threshold for users' 3D modeling brought by generative AI is considered the key driving force for the explosion of the 3D printer market.

MakerWorld (Source: Bambu Lab)

It is worth mentioning that Tencent is also one of the shareholders of the 3D printer company Creality 3D. Creality 3D is seeking an IPO on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, aiming to become the "first stock in the consumer 3D printing industry."

Before the news of Tencent's investment in Bambu Lab spread, DJI confirmed its investment in BPI (Series B, with a scale of hundreds of millions of RMB). This was regarded by the outside world as DJI's official entry into the 3D printer market, which also triggered Bambu Lab's "criticism" of DJI.

Recently, Tao Ye, the founder of Bambu Lab, posted a long post of over a thousand characters on his WeChat Moments, saying that "my former employer invested in a 3D printing company, and the agreement specially included clauses related to Bambu Lab." Tao Ye believes that "there is a 99.9% chance that it is because the talent flow touched the former boss's sore spot."

(Screenshot source: Tao Ye's WeChat Moments)

Tao Ye said bluntly that DJI's investment in BPI is not a "value investment" but an attempt to "strike at other competitors": Just look at the target. If it were a value investment, it would choose a company with innovative capabilities that is most similar to DJI. If it is a strike, it would choose the most cut - throat company.

When being interviewed by the media, Chen Bo, the co - founder of BPI, not only did not refute Tao Ye's view of BPI being the "most cut - throat company" but also gave an explanation: "Precise cost control allows us to offer this price. People say that BPI is the most cut - throat company in the industry, but we can still make a profit at this price. So why not? Let more people join the 3D printing industry, and the market will grow bigger."

When talking about DJI's investment, Chen Bo also did not hide his thoughts: "In the past few years, BPI 'rejected a lot of money'. Compared with pure financial investment, BPI prefers to supplement its technical capabilities with DJI's support. After this round of financing, the company will benchmark against DJI and go all - in on product R & D to improve its ecological construction."

Entrepreneurship by DJI Alumni or DJI's Agent?

The founding team members of Bambu Lab come from DJI's core R & D team, and in the early days of entrepreneurship, it was called "Bambu Lab from the DJI camp" in the venture capital circle.

In product R & D, the Bambu Lab team also continued the system engineering capabilities formed during their time at DJI. They "migrated" key technologies such as brushless motors, lidar, multi - camera systems, and resonance control, which are widely used in consumer drones, to consumer 3D printers: This has improved printing accuracy, enhanced the stability of multi - material printing, significantly reduced the overall machine noise, and brought about solutions for scenarios such as abnormal perception, resuming printing after power failure, and loss prevention in case of failure.

Even on Bambu Lab's current recruitment page, the company's self - introduction is "a technology company dedicated to revolutionizing the desktop 3D printing industry with the most advanced robot technology. It was founded by the top - notch team in China's drone industry, and the founder was in charge of DJI's most core consumer drone division."

Bambu Lab's recruitment page (Source: BOSS Zhipin)

Therefore, whether from the outside world's perspective or its own self - identity, Bambu Lab can be regarded as a victory of the "DJI alumni entrepreneurship team" in the 3D printer market, or even a "dimensionality - reduction strike" victory. However, DJI or Wang Tao's actual perception may be different.

In terms of personnel recruitment, given Bambu Lab's corporate positioning and style, there will inevitably be a fierce competition for talent with DJI. Moreover, categories such as drones, action cameras (intelligent imaging), sweeping robots, and 3D printers have a large number of underlying "common" technologies and applications.

Bambu H2C (Source: Bambu Lab)

More importantly, if the "DJI alumni entrepreneurship team" can achieve such "brilliant" results after a few years, then in the 3D printer and intelligent cleaning (such as sweeping robots) industries, can R & D personnel or small teams with certain technical capabilities within DJI resist the temptation of the rising trend of "DJI alumni entrepreneurship" outside?

For DJI, this investment in BPI, with the "special arrangement of clauses related to Bambu Lab" in the agreement, including the "goal" of annual revenue exceeding 5 billion RMB in the next three years and the Series B financing of hundreds of millions of RMB, clearly shows that it is to support this company to grow faster in order to compete with the leader Bambu Lab in the future.

Aileku CC 2 (Source: BPI)

On the other hand, although BPI's revenue scale is also among the top in the industry, it is currently significantly smaller than that of Bambu Lab. Official data shows that BPI's revenue exceeded 1.6 billion RMB in 2024 and is expected to exceed 2.5 billion RMB in 2025. With a revenue scale several times that of BPI, Bambu Lab still has the advantage and initiative, especially since this company has strong capabilities in technology R & D and market expansion.

It should be noted that the competition between "entrepreneurship by DJI alumni" and "DJI's agent" in the 3D printer market may only be a temporary phenomenon. Five years ago, DJI did not enter the sweeping robot market, but this year, it launched its own ROMO series of sweeping robot products, right?

DJI ROMO P Sweeping Robot (Photographed by Lei Keji)

For a conservative player like DJI, after the consumer 3D printer category truly takes off, it may start to think about whether to continue to support its "agent" or enter the market directly. By then, more giant companies will also get involved and make in - depth layouts.

The "Four Kings in Shenzhen All Have Their Own No. 1 Titles"

Data from market research institutions shows that among the top five global consumer 3D printer companies, four are from China and all are based in Shenzhen, namely Bambu Lab, Creality 3D, Anycubic, and BPI, which hold about 95% of the global entry - level 3D printer (with a unit price below $2,500) market share.

The above four companies are also known as the "Four Kings" in the consumer 3D printer market.

An interesting phenomenon is that each of the Four Kings in Shenzhen has a first - place title.

Bambu Lab has the highest shipment volume in the global consumer 3D printer market in the past three years, the new king;

Creality 3D has the highest cumulative shipment volume in the global consumer 3D printer market, the old king;

Anycubic is a globally leading consumer 3D printer brand company;

BPI has the highest shipment volume in the global consumer SLA 3D printer market.

Among them, both Bambu Lab and Creality 3D have Tencent's involvement. The cost - effective player BPI has DJI's support, and Anycubic focuses on the overseas and cross - border e - commerce markets.

There is also a company in Shenzhen that needs to be mentioned, which is QuickCreate Technology. Known as the "globally leading desktop multi - functional 3D printer company," QuickCreate Technology recently completed its latest round of financing, introducing new shareholders such as Meituan, Meituan Longzhu, and Hillhouse Capital. Previously, QuickCreate Technology's Snapmaker U1 multi - color and multi - material 3D printer set a crowdfunding record on the Kickstarter platform for consumer 3D printer products with a crowdfunding amount of $20.61 million.

(Image source: Sohu account @Langhan Brand Going Global)

Behind each of the five Shenzhen companies having a first - place title, the consumer 3D printer market is still in its early stage of development: each company does not accept the others, and the industry's development pattern is far from being finalized. This is still a very new market, and among the 3D printer segments, it is currently the only one with "positive growth."

The global 3D printer market is currently divided into the industrial - grade 3D printer (with a unit price above $100,000) market, the mid - end 3D printer (with a unit price between $20,000 and $100,000) market, the professional - grade 3D printer (with a unit price between $2,500 and $20,000) market, and the entry - level 3D printer (with a unit price below $2,500) market.

The latest report released by CONTEXT shows that in the second quarter of 2025, among the four major categories of the global 3D printer market, only the entry - level 3D printer market achieved a positive year - on - year growth of 21%, while the professional - grade 3D printer market had a negative growth of 29%, the mid - end 3D printer market had a negative growth of 11%, and the industrial - grade 3D printer market had a negative growth of 14%.