Porsche Automobil Holding SE, the investment vehicle whose main asset is a majority holding in Volkswagen AG, acquired minority stakes in two 3D-printing companies as part of a long-standing effort to broaden its investment portfolio.
The combined price for stakes of less than 10% each in Watertown, Massachusetts-based Markforged Inc. and an unidentified peer amounts to “a single-digit million-euro figure,” Porsche said Thursday in a statement. The German company plans to spend a double-digit million-euro sum on venture holdings annually going forward.
“Additive manufacturing is one of the highly promising technologies we have identified,” Philipp von Hagen, Porsche’s investment-management head, said in the statement.
The holding company controlled by the Porsche and Piech billionaire family embarked on its first takeover in June with the acquisition of a German software maker after struggling for years to complete a significant transaction. Prior to spending more than 300 million euros ($349.52 million) on a 97% stake in PTV Planung Transport Verkehr AG, Stuttgart-based Porsche’s only other purchase has been a 10% stake in traffic-information provider Inrix Inc. for about 41 million euros ($47.77 million). Porsche later had to write that investment value down to 21 million euros ($24.47 million).
Markforged, founded in 2013, has some 100 employees and can print parts in materials ranging from carbon fiber to metal, Porsche said.
Porsche SE no longer holds direct control of the Porsche car brand, which is now overseen by Volkswagen following the holding company’s takeover of the automaking giant.
By Christoph Rauwald
