Ten years after Glowforge was based in Seattle, the startup’s longtime leaders are rebooting the laser-engraver enterprise.
Following months of turmoil involving a number of rounds of layoffs, a failed funding round, and the closure of a Seattle manufacturing facility, Glowforge has undergone a restructuring by an Assignment for the Benefit of Creditors, a state-level course of that’s a substitute for chapter.
Co-founder and CEO Dan Shapiro instructed GeekWire that the corporate — which had raised $183 million from buyers — arrived at this second “after spending a painful 9 months taking a look at each potential choice for the enterprise.”
However it’s not the top for the maker of a line of desktop 3D laser cutters/engravers that took the house crafting world by storm back in 2015.
Shapiro mentioned he and co-founder Mark Gosselin, the startup’s CTO, negotiated with the entity that was assigned Glowforge’s property — which was in any other case able to liquidate the corporate — to accumulate the trademark and model, the {hardware} platform, software program, and rights to fabricate extra machines in Seattle.
“The board of administrators ran a gross sales course of led by an unbiased third get together,” Shapiro mentioned. “When there weren’t any bidders, Mark and I put in a bid from our personal financial savings.”
He mentioned the corporate makes sufficient cash out of the gate to assist a staff of about 20 former Glowforge workers, and that he and Gosselin plan to “get again to fundamentals,” bettering {hardware} and software program and serving clients.
A tough few years
Shapiro mentioned Glowforge was “weeks away from going public” in 2022 earlier than it was derailed by what he known as “a collapse within the crafting market” that took out key strategic companions like JOANN, which filed for bankruptcy in 2024.
Whereas he credit hundreds of thousands in capital and a rising employees for enabling the startup to do issues “we by no means dreamed of,” Shapiro mentioned it’s been a three-year wrestle to maintain serving clients.
“The necessity to scale in any respect prices, to optimize for the subsequent funding spherical, to hit development metrics that justified ever-higher valuations … it pulled us away from what mattered,” he mentioned.
In early 2025, Glowforge moved meeting of its highest-end machines from Mexico again to the U.S. and Seattle with the opening of a production facility in its SoDo headquarters area. The work employed 15 individuals, and Shapiro mentioned on the time Glowforge employed simply over 90 full-time and contract workers.
However following layoffs in August that impacted a number of groups, the manufacturing facility was shuttered in September within the wake of extra layoffs.
“I’m not going to fake this yr was something however brutal,” Shapiro mentioned. “Layoffs are painful. Restructuring is messy. And there are individuals who believed within the authentic firm who’re understandably disillusioned.”
Create ‘nearly something’
Shapiro based Glowforge in 2015 with fellow startup veterans Gosselin (founder and former CTO of Cequint) and Tony Wright (founding father of RescueTime, Jobby and CubeDuel), who left the company in 2017. Shapiro beforehand bought the startup Sparkbuy to Google, and he created Robotic Turtles, a coding board sport for youths that was one among the most successful campaigns ever on Kickstarter.
Glowforge’s machines let individuals use uncooked supplies together with leather-based, paper, plastic, cloth, or cardboard to intricately lower and engrave merchandise with the push of a button.
By way of its cloud-based software program customers can design and develop creations from an internet browser on a pc, pill, or cellphone. You possibly can create “nearly something” with Glowforge, Shapiro beforehand mentioned, together with jewellery, ornamental gadgets, smartphone engravings, wallets, toys, and extra.
Glowforge backers included Brad Feld’s Foundry Group and True Ventures, which led the company’s $9 million Series A round in May 2015. MakerBot co-founder Bre Pettis, former MakerBot CEO Jenny Lawton, Wetpaint founder Ben Elowitz, KISSmetrics founder Hiten Shah, and former Swype CEO Mike McSherry are amongst different buyers.
The corporate set a crowdfunding record in October 2015 with a 30-day marketing campaign that generated $27.9 million in gross sales.
“Mark and I began this as a result of we believed one thing easy: everybody ought to be capable of make lovely issues,” Shapiro mentioned this week. “Not simply individuals with engineering levels or costly workshops, however everybody. And we created a desktop laser market that no one had even imagined might exist.”
In August 2016, the corporate raised $22 million, but it surely was coping with shipping delays that stretched into 2017 and brought on mounting buyer frustration and order cancellations. In 2018, the corporate raised one other $10 million, and $43 million extra in 2022.
Glowforge initially targeted on direct-to-consumer and later partnered with massive craft retailers reminiscent of JOANN and Michaels. The corporate additionally expanded to serve schools and universities in 2021.
The startup finally bought two higher-end machines together with the Glowforge Plus ($4,995) and Glowforge Professional ($6,995). In 2023 it released the $1,200 Aura and in 2024 the $699 Spark in an try to draw a wider viewers of customers.
New focus
Eternally optimistic all through Glowforge’s years of ups and downs, Shapiro displays that very same attribute within the face of beginning over.
He known as it a “rebirth” and a return to the imaginative and prescient that he and Gosselin had in 2015, with a staff “that’s right here for the mission, not the self-importance metrics” and to serve clients “moderately than optimizing for investor shows.”
“The price of being a growth-first firm is very large, and never all the time apparent,” Shapiro mentioned. “Once we stripped the enterprise to its necessities, we might see what we really wanted to serve our clients.”
The identical {hardware} and software program merchandise can be provided, and Shapiro mentioned enhancements are coming. New options are additionally being launched now and subsequent week, together with: Field Builder, which makes use of generative AI to let customers describe a customized field in plain English earlier than Glowforge creates the design; and Snapmarks, wherein customers can print something on a daily inkjet printer (stickers, iron ons) and cargo it right into a Glowforge laser for reducing.
Shapiro additionally mentioned they plan to proceed the manufacturing formulation they beforehand developed to construct machines in Seattle.
He known as the brand new Glowforge an amazing enterprise from day one — “superior product, wonderful clients, and worthwhile,” including that the startup is now “less complicated, extra targeted, and extra dedicated to the lengthy haul. And Mark and I are all in.”
