China Watch #3: Farsoon prepares its largest-ever financing, while Chinese 3D printer exports overtake industrial robots
This edition also covers the Continuous Composites lawsuit, metal-ceramic composites from QiYu Tech, and Bambu Lab’s record graduate recruitment drive
Hi, this is Anna, and welcome to another edition of China Watch - our look at what happened in Chinese 3D printing over the past week and what usually gets overlooked by Western media. There is a little less news this time around. Most of the action is on the industrial side, so that’s where we’ll start.
Farsoon: record financing and a shift toward services
Farsoon has received the green light from the Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE) for a private placement of shares worth RMB 3.91 billion (approximately $540 million). This would be the largest domestic financing deal in the history of Chinese 3D printing.
The allocation of the funds is particularly interesting. The company plans to spend RMB 1.08 billion (approximately $150 million) on production capacity, RMB 480 million (approximately $67 million) on a global operations center, while the largest portion - RMB 2.36 billion (approximately $328 million) will go toward an integrated services platform. Farsoon itself describes the strategy as a transition from “selling machines” to “delivering services.”
The funds raised in its 2023 IPO are already 92% utilized, while the projects associated with that financing generated RMB 64 million (approximately $9 million) in profit in 2025. The company closed the full year with revenue of around RMB 715 million (approximately $99 million), up 45% year over year. The latest application is now awaiting SSE review and registration with the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC).
Fresh numbers were added in the half-year report released on August 11. In the first half of 2026, Farsoon generated RMB 341 million (approximately $47 million) in revenue, up 42.27% year over year, and RMB 8.43 million (approximately $1.2 million) in net profit attributable to shareholders, up as much as 87.09%.
The company attributed the jump in profit to higher sales of 3D printing equipment. On Tuesday, Farsoon’s share price stood at RMB 91.48 per share (approximately $12.70), giving the company a market capitalization of around RMB 38.02 billion (approximately $5.3 billion).
Exports and macro data
China’s customs authorities have released trade figures for the first seven months of the year. Exports of machinery and electronic products reached RMB 11.12 trillion (approximately $1.54 trillion), up 21.2% year over year, accounting for 63.8% of total exports.
3D printers alone accounted for RMB 11.2 billion (approximately $1.56 billion), up 110% year over year. That is RMB 3.86 billion (approximately $540 million) more than exports of industrial robots, which stood at RMB 7.34 billion (approximately $1.02 billion), making 3D printer exports roughly 1.5 times larger.
This refers to export value in yuan, not the number of units shipped. The two metrics are growing at different rates, something that is easy to forget when looking at headlines like these.
There is also some data on the scale of the domestic market.
According to Qichacha, as of August 6, China had 210,600 companies involved in 3D printing. Eastern and southern China accounted for 30.51% and 23.44% of the total respectively, together representing more than half of all such companies.
In 2025, 48,400 new entities were registered, up 19.93% year over year and the highest number in history. In 2026 alone, another 28,000 have already been registered.
Continuous Composites vs. Anisoprint
Continuous Composites filed a lawsuit in Delaware against Anisoprint, the company behind the FibreSeek brand, alleging infringement of ten US patents. The case was announced on August 10, and we covered it in more detail earlier this week.
The FibreSeeker 3 printer is at the center of the dispute. According to Continuous Composites, its co-extrusion process infringes the company’s patents covering continuous-fiber 3D printing. The US company has a portfolio of more than 120 patents in the United States and claims that licensing discussions ongoing since 2023 failed to produce an agreement.
CEO Steve Starner says litigation was a last resort. The company is seeking damages as well as an injunction preventing further sales of the allegedly infringing machine.
QiYu Tech: DLP for metal-ceramic composites
QiYu Tech has demonstrated DLP printing of composite suspensions combining a copper-tin alloy (CuSn) with silicon carbide (SiC), with solid-phase loadings of 80% and 90% by weight.
Such a mixture is difficult to print. CuSn powders absorb and scatter UV light, reducing curing depth, while the high solid loading increases viscosity and requires uniform spreading and precise exposure.
Despite these challenges, using its own ceramic DLP platform, the company successfully printed curved and block-shaped green bodies with clean contours and no visible defects at both solid loadings. The 80% formulation provided better process stability, while the 90% version required more precise parameter tuning.
Achieving the final material properties still requires post-processing, including debinding and sintering.
Consumer segment: print farms and a record recruitment drive
On August 27, Creality and Kingfa will host an open day in Shenzhen titled “Start a Farm with Creality,” inviting 3D printing farm operators from across China. The program will cover farm operations, on-site hardware testing, case studies, and networking. Participants will also be able to get hands-on experience with 3D printing, laser engraving, and 3D scanning.
Print farms are also growing in hard numbers. Last Friday, an application for the construction of Huina Technology’s production base in Boluo passed the approval stage, with a total investment of RMB 200 million (approximately $28 million). The investor is Shenzhen Jinshi Huina Technology.
The approximately 12,500-square-meter site will host a Bambu Lab printer park, with 6,500 machines in the first phase and 15,000 ultimately planned. It will also include PLA filament production lines - 300 automated extrusion lines in total, to be brought online in stages over five years.
Meanwhile, Bambu Lab has launched its 2027 autumn graduate recruitment campaign. The company has opened more than 100 types of positions for graduates, both in China and internationally, including roles in Shenzhen, Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Wuhan.
In terms of scale and the number of disciplines covered, this is a record recruitment drive for the company and one of the larger graduate hiring campaigns in the consumer 3D printing industry.