It’s typically at a commerce present the place trade challenges and alternatives current themselves.
How typically have you ever heard of a producer, with permission to purchase, not know the place to begin? A whole lot of distributors, a bustling exhibition corridor, and just a few days to take all of it in. This overwhelming expertise is commonly the difficult begin to an additive manufacturing (AM) success story.
When Dan Kehr visited RAPID + TCT round 5 years in the past, he was no much less overwhelmed, however he wasn’t surveying the room as a purchaser. He was as a substitute centered on how the lots of of exhibitors have been promoting to the hundreds of tourists.
Not how they marketed themselves, nor how they pitched their merchandise, nor even how they turned leads into gross sales. He was questioning on what phrases these machines have been bought.
The commonest reply when he engaged exhibitors in dialog was that a purchase order order of, say $300,000, $500,000, or upwards of $1 million could be lower, and if the client didn’t have the funds for that, it was powerful luck.
“That’s the place I recognized an actual alternative,” Kehr instructed TCT, “for, not only a transactional focus from a monetary supplier, however a real vendor focus the place it’s a go-to-market technique that’s a differentiator on the market, and permits for extra individuals to undertake the expertise, to get into expertise refresh cycles as these producers come out with new, higher, improved merchandise.”
Kehr speaks to TCT in July 2025 as Senior Director of Enterprise Improvement inside GreatAmerica Monetary Providers – a task he was appointed to in February. He has been trusted to face up a division devoted to the additive manufacturing house that’s an middleman between patrons and sellers of AM expertise.
Kehr needs GreatAmerica to attain what different monetary companies firms haven’t: to essentially remodel the way in which enterprise is carried out within the additive manufacturing trade.
“You’ve seen different monetary companies establishments dip their toes in after which bounce out,” Kehr mentioned. “And I feel it’s primarily as a result of individuals don’t perceive the trade. They suppose they perceive it after they go in, after which it’s a completely completely different factor than what they anticipated. It’s a matter of rolling up your sleeves and understanding the challenges the trade has confronted and addressing these.”
Beneath, in a dialog edited for brevity and readability, Kehr [DK] outlines how GreatAmerica is aiming to deal with these challenges.
TCT: First, may you define GreatAmerica’s imaginative and prescient because it pertains to industries just like the additive manufacturing sector?
DK: GreatAmerica has at all times believed in strategic progress, not simply progress for the sake of progress. Additive manufacturing is an trade that’s adjoining to many industries that we already service and really feel that we are able to make an actual affect in serving to facilitate progress.
TCT: You got here into the organisation earlier this yr, however for a way lengthy and to what extent has GreatAmerica been engaged with the additive manufacturing house?
DK: GreatAmerica already had many years of expertise within the building, healthcare and automotive industries. It’s by means of working in these areas that they grew to become conscious of additive and sought to develop into that market. That’s once I got here into the image a yr in the past. GreatAmerica was seeking to discover somebody skilled within the additive house to assist develop a devoted Additive Manufacturing crew. Working for different tools finance firms, I can admire their strategy and dedication to the additive trade.
TCT: By way of growing relationships with shoppers and trade stakeholders, how a lot progress has been made to date?
DK: We now have already onboarded and labored with some the biggest producers and resellers within the trade. Our objective is to make the expertise accessible to finish customers and assist our distributors remodel their go to market technique.
TCT: You say that individuals and organisations new to the additive manufacturing sector are shocked by what they discover after they enter the house. So, what do individuals anticipate after they come into the AM trade?
DK: I feel lots of people anticipate additive to exchange subtractive. I feel that is a typical false impression – it is one or the opposite, and it isn’t essentially the case. In addition they anticipate that there was, amongst these individuals promoting the expertise, a well-defined go-to-market technique, which I am not saying there is not, however I feel it may at all times enhance.
There are a variety of very technical of us on the market. I feel the trade is flooded with a few of the finest minds I’ve ever labored with. How are you going to educate and empower the technical purchaser (person) to promote the ROI upstream to the monetary purchaser? How do you guarantee they’re profitable from then on, to hopefully purchase extra? Or no less than refresh as you come out with new merchandise and applied sciences? That’s one of many challenges.
Financing and fee options have been an afterthought within the additive manufacturing house.
TCT: How is GreatAmerica Monetary Providers addressing that?
DK: My major objective is to see this trade profitable with extra finish customers adopting the expertise however not adopting it within the unsuitable manner. Our choices present a path to adopting new applied sciences right this moment and sooner or later. It’s not a one-time buy, it a plan to undertake and leverage additive applied sciences for the long run.
What we’ve created are a collection of economic merchandise that enable for distributors to rethink various approaches to accruing tools, both by means of CapEx or OpEx. As an alternative of getting everybody dry up CapEx, which is a really restricted pool of cash that they use for different expertise, we are able to take into consideration this a unique manner the place of us can nonetheless have flexibility as their enterprise wants change.
TCT: So, your major contact level is with suppliers of 3D printing methods?
DK: Right, which is somewhat bit completely different to how this trade has approached it up to now. I feel financing and fee options have been an afterthought on this house. Financing isn’t for firms that “can’t purchase”, it’s for firms of all sizes and for all purposes. It creates a number of buy choices by aligning the acquisition with the enterprise wants.
I feel, for me, I’d deem my actual prospects the distributors, the producers, resellers of the expertise, however their prospects are additionally my prospects. It’s a proactive and devoted channel focus.
TCT: Would you take into account present vendor approaches prohibitive to the adoption of AM expertise?
DK: I feel the phrases that they provide typically will be. Most people require a sizeable down fee, adopted by one other giant lump sum, and that’s even earlier than the unit is shipped. You’re speaking lots of of hundreds, or hundreds of thousands, of {dollars}. Folks should allocate that within the funds yearly. The gross sales cycles as an entire for this trade are prolonged. It’s important to look ahead to the subsequent funds cycle to even begin earlier than contemplating making that buy. The place I’d like to see a change is extra individuals offering a fee answer as an providing upfront. By providing a fee answer upfront, a extra knowledgeable purchaser has the power to leverage completely different funds varieties, shield money movement, and higher align the expertise to their long run targets. So, that is the place I need to see the trade begin to shift. Proper now, the largest objection to adoption within the trade is value, and we need to create options to beat that.
TCT: What do you suppose is the motivation behind requiring 50%, in some examples, of the price of a machine to be paid upfront?
DK: I feel it’s money movement, income recognition, lead time and having to construct the tools. I feel their phrases are their phrases for a cause.
The great factor about working with somebody like us is that we pay distributors as if it’s a money sale. We’re functioning as the client in that situation, so we’ll observe their money phrases, no matter they could be, however the end-user buyer doesn’t really feel that burden. They don’t begin paying for the tools till it’s there. We’re completely satisfied as a result of we’re coming into into an settlement with an finish buyer and serving to drive gross sales for a vendor. The seller’s completely satisfied as a result of they’re getting paid as if it’s a money deal. And the client is completely satisfied as a result of they’ve a fee answer that matches inside their enterprise wants.
Clients have had a little bit of a adverse connotation to the phrase ‘finance’. My objective is to assist drive adoption of additive manufacturing applied sciences with straightforward buying choices.
TCT: What’s the extent of your capability to assist distributors and customers of AM expertise?
DK: I’d say this trade does, round $21 billion yearly. To say 10% of that, even 5%, is leased or financed through a 3rd celebration is an understatement. It may get to an area the place that shifts to 25%, even 50%, and long-term, the sky is the restrict. GreatAmerica is worked up to assist the additive manufacturing market and its thrilling mixture of producers, resellers, associations, and end-users.
TCT: Does the additive manufacturing trade want extra organisations providing these sorts of companies?
DK: My place has at all times been that it’s not a one-size-fits-all strategy. The best way this trade is constructed, it’s very customized, it’s very distinctive, and due to this fact we have to have distinctive merchandise to service it and there must be a number of gamers. Wholesome competitors is at all times good. I’ve not seen anybody but, aside from GreatAmerica, make a full dedication to this house. It’s both been checked out as a transactional, one-off strategy, or of us have gotten in after which gotten again out as a result of no person’s taken the time to know the trade itself, or the expertise and the way it may be used to drive general manufacturing.
Having a variety of gamers who make a full dedication to the house could be very, very useful for everybody. Traditionally, because of the lack of dedication and presence, prospects have had a little bit of a adverse connotation to the phrase finance. My objective is to assist drive adoption of additive manufacturing applied sciences with straightforward buying choices.
GreatAmerica is the biggest, family-owned nationwide industrial tools finance firm in the US. A $3.3+ billion firm with life-to-date finance originations of $18 billion, GreatAmerica was established in Cedar Rapids, Iowa in 1992. Devoted to serving to producers, distributors, resellers, and franchisees be extra profitable and preserve their prospects for a lifetime, GreatAmerica presents progressive, complementary companies along with financing.