Ghost Kitchen for Objects
Ben Shen@bgshok
−1.0%
since Oct 16
The idea
I believe making physical things is shifting to on demand: you send a design, a central shop prints or machines it, and it ships fast, like a ghost kitchen for objects, with AI making the designing easier. The core holdings are on-demand factories, backed by metal powder and alloy suppliers, printer and software makers, and fast shipping carriers. It stays concentrated in a handful of names tied to this one idea, with a small cash reserve to add on sharp pullbacks, and the clock on this is a couple of years, starting with industrial parts before consumer goods.
What it owns
- These companies take a customer's design file and deliver a finished part within days, which is the ghost kitchen model working today. · Xometry, Inc.It routes design files to a network of shops and handles the make-and-ship workflow for custom parts, which works only if marketplace order volume keeps growing faster than ordinary manufacturing., Proto Labs, Inc.It runs digital factories and a partner network that turn uploaded designs into machined, molded and printed parts in days, the exact role expected to win if on-demand order volume keeps growing., Stratasys Ltd.Print shops filling on-demand orders burn through its materials, with consumables revenue rising even as printer sales fall, so the case holds if materials and services keep climbing.44%
- Every printed or machined part uses up metal powder or specialty alloy, so these suppliers grow with order volume no matter which shop wins. · Carpenter Technology CorporationIt makes specialty alloys and metal powders that go into printed and machined industrial parts, so more on-demand metal parts means more material sold., ATI Inc.It supplies high-performance alloys and powders for aerospace and industrial parts, the kind of custom metal work expected to move toward central shops first., Kennametal Inc.It supplies the cutting tools and metal powders that busier on-demand factories consume at a steady rate, so growth in industrial shop activity drives demand for its tooling and additive materials.21%
- Printer makers earn recurring money from materials, software and their own parts services as more objects get made on demand. · Materialise NVIt sells software that prepares and manages print jobs and runs its own print service, the essential plumbing a central object factory needs to operate., 3D Systems CorporationIt makes printers and materials for industrial and medical parts, and more on-demand printing helps only if its materials and parts business grows enough to offset weak machine sales., Nano Dimension Ltd.It is a cash-heavy printer company in restructuring, here as a cheap option on industrial printing growing if management turns cash into a working additive business.16%
- Central production only works if finished objects reach customers fast, which depends on parcel networks holding up their express volumes and pricing. · FedEx CorporationIt operates the fast-delivery network that makes central production viable, since a part printed in one shop only beats local inventory if it arrives within a day or two., United Parcel Service, Inc.It carries a huge share of business-to-business parcels, the route most on-demand industrial parts take from shop to customer.11%
- Cash8%