What did we learn?
Nano Dimension has decided to abandon the hostile world of AM in favor of the much more promising field of epigenetic diagnostics. And powered by almighty AI!
At the end of the Coen brothers’ „Burn After Reading” - a 2008 “spy” movie - the CIA Superior (played by JK Simmons) listens as CIA Officer Palmer (played by David Rasche) delivers a report on a chain of events so absurd that it’s impossible to summarize.
Eventually, exhausted and disgusted by what he has just heard, he asks:
What did we learn, Palmer?
I don’t know, sir - replies the officer.
To which the CIA Superior concludes:
I don’t know either. I guess we learned not to do it again.
He closes the case file, the camera rises upward, and the movie ends.
And that’s probably the best possible way to describe the latest situation at Nano Dimension.
The now-legendary 3D electronics printing company (along with a dozen other technologies it acquired along the way) announced last week that it plans to merge with Infinite Epigenetics - a company specializing in... epigenetic diagnostics.
Yes. Exactly.
The company that five years ago promised to print electronic circuits layer by layer, and later claimed it would revolutionize manufacturing through the combined forces of Desktop Metal and Markforged, now wants to analyze your epigenome and warn you before diabetes catches up with you.
In the meantime, it raised $1.36 billion from the stock market, attempted a hostile takeover of Stratasys, acquired those same two companies for nearly $300 million, one of which filed for bankruptcy just 117 days after the transaction closed. It also received a court order from Delaware, went through four CEOs, fought a legal war with its largest shareholder, and ultimately sold off nearly all of its assets for pennies on the dollar.
This is the story of building an additive manufacturing empire that never came into existence, losing roughly $900 million along the way, and attempting to exit the industry through the back door, leaving behind little more than a Nasdaq ticker and a question nobody can answer.
So then...
What did we learn?
Chaos Dimension
Let’s start at the end of 2019, because back then everything still made sense and still looked innocent enough.
Nano Dimension had $4 million in cash and was a niche Israeli electronics printing company. Plenty of people had heard of it; very few actually understood what it did or what its technology could be used for.
Then Yoav Stern arrived.
And so did the money.
During 2020-2021, right in the epicenter of AM’s Third Era, riding the industrial metal AM bubble and soaring stock prices, Stern launched a series of ATM stock offerings. A company without any significant revenue managed to accumulate $1.36 billion in cash.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, Nano Dimension became one of the richest companies in the industry.
In reality, it was a treasury vault with a 3D printer glued onto it.
With a mountain of free money at his disposal, Stern went shopping.
First came the smaller deals: Admatec, DeepCube, Fabrica.
Then, in 2023, came the infamous hostile takeover attempt of Stratasys. Starting at $18 per share, then three sweetened offers, all the way up to $24.
The Stratasys board unanimously rejected every single one.
When Stratasys finally slipped through Stern’s fingers after a lengthy battle, he bought whatever he could.
In July 2024, he announced the shocking acquisition of Desktop Metal for $179 million.
In September, he added the equally shocking acquisition of Markforged for $116 million.
The vision was straightforward: a vertically integrated AM platform.
Nano would contribute polymers and electronics. Desktop Metal would bring metals. Markforged would provide continuous-fiber composites.
Hardware, materials, and software under one roof. Solutions for defense, aerospace, healthcare, and automotive.
Combined revenue of $340 million. One AM supplier for the entire world.
A beautiful plan. On paper.
In reality, it never had a chance.
This duct-tape superstar never even made it off the bench - let alone onto the court to play the game.
In December 2024, Nano Dimension’s key shareholder, Murchinson, after more than two years of legal battles, removed Stern from the board.
It was brutal. The departure happened on December 26th, right in the middle of the holidays.
After that, the CEO position became a revolving door.
Julien Lederman served as interim CEO, followed by Ofir Baharav, and eventually the current CEO, Dave Stehlin.
After Stern’s departure, Nano Dimension did everything in its power to kill the Desktop Metal acquisition, which by then was already effectively bankrupt.
But the matter ended up in court, and in March 2025 a Delaware court ordered Nano to complete the acquisition.
The Desktop Metal deal closed on April 2. Markforged followed on April 25. Cash dropped from $840 million to $551 million.
On July 28, 2025, Desktop Metal filed for bankruptcy. 117 days after the acquisition closed.
Its key assets were ultimately sold for $7 million - less than 4% of the purchase price.
For the full year 2025, Nano recorded $139 million in impairments related to Desktop Metal and a net loss of $293 million.
Then the garage sale began.
In April 2026, the AME and Fabrica businesses were sold to Inspira Technologies for up to $12.5 million.
(A small treat for connoisseurs: Inspira’s CEO is Dagi Ben-Noon, Nano’s co-founder. The technology returned to its creator for a fraction of its former value.)
Then, on May 27, 2026, Markforged was sold for $42.5 million - just 36% of what Nano had paid a year earlier.
The buyer was Stratasys. The same company Stern had tried to swallow whole three years earlier.
Let’s do the math.
From the peak of $1.36 billion to today, roughly $900 million in cash has evaporated. In less than five years. What remains is about $500 million and a Nasdaq listing.
What do you do with an empty treasury that has lost its reason for existence?
You go looking for a new story.
And that’s where Infinite Epigenetics comes in!
Ok., let me explain what it actually is and what it does. Because it’s hard to imagine anything further removed from additive manufacturing.
Epigenetics is the study of which genes are switched on and which are switched off at any given moment, without altering the underlying DNA sequence itself.
Infinite is building an AI-powered platform for early disease detection.
It owns a CLIA-certified laboratory (TruDiagnostic), a longevity company (Tally Health), more than 120,000 biological samples, and a model capable of extracting over one million epigenetic signals from a single test.
It is targeting four chronic diseases and a diagnostics market worth more than $90 billion.
Interesting. Very interesting.
Equally interesting, and puzzling is the fact that a company that prints electronic circuits and once aspired to become the champion of industrial additive manufacturing now wants to predict when you’re going to have a heart attack.
The proposed transaction is valued at $890 million.
The combined company would operate under the name Infinite Epigenetics and trade under the ticker “IEAI.”
Nano shareholders are expected to receive a 20% premium to net cash value and a minority stake in the combined entity.
Assuming the deal happens at all.
Because Murchinson, which now owns 7.4% of the company, is not exactly thrilled about the idea. It argues that the proposed transaction is effectively a SPAC in disguise. That the stock fell 15% on the day the deal was announced. And that shareholders were not allowed to ask a single question during the conference call.
Nano’s response?
This is absolutely not a SPAC.
It’s a real business, with revenue, laboratories, and science behind it.
Uhm...
Let’s go back to the Coen brothers…
Burn After Reading
„Burn After Reading” is a movie in which nobody really understands what happened. People chase a folder whose contents are worthless. They die by accident. Everyone acts in good faith, and everyone is wrong.
At the end, the CIA chief looks at the entire mess, shrugs his shoulders, and decides to forget about it, because there is nothing smarter that can be done with it.
The Nano Dimension saga has exactly the same shape.
The First Law of the AM Market states:
A company identified or perceived as a “3D printing company” will never achieve significant success in any market other than the 3D printing market.
There is no escaping that label as long as you keep the same name. And that’s precisely why Nano’s move is, in its own twisted way, logical.
The only escape route that actually works is brutal: put the brand to sleep, keep the cash and the listing, change industries. From printers to epigenomes.
Nano is trying to stop existing as a 3D printing company while leaving behind nothing but a balance sheet and a ticker symbol.
It’s a transfusion into a new body.
Now let’s move to the Third Law of the Market - the one about money:
An increase in the value of the 3D printing market may or may not correspond to an increase in the value of the 3D printing companies that make up that market. Market value and company value are not correlated.
The 3D printing market has been growing at roughly 20–25% annually.
Nano’s shareholders lost around $900 million over the same period.
So much for the correlation between market growth and company value.
You can sit inside a growing industry and still burn through a fortune. Nano just showed everyone how.
And now for the best part.
Desktop Metal - the company that dragged Nano to the bottom, was a child of the SPAC era.
According to Murchinson, the rescue plan is another transaction that looks suspiciously like a SPAC.
The snake is eating its own tail and doesn’t even realize it’s its own tail.
So what did we learn?
I guess we learned not to do it again.
Just as the bankruptcy of Desktop Metal marked the symbolic end of the Third Era of AM, if this transaction actually goes through, what we’ll be witnessing is the wake after the funeral.
And hopefully, once that’s over, we’ll finally be able to move on and stop repeating the same fucking mistakes over and over again.