Alphaform AG and Tiburon Unternehmensaufbau GmbH agreed to establish a joint venture for online sales and additive manufacturing of high quality art and design works, even in limited edition. For this purpose, both companies signed on October 10, 2013 a correspondent Joint Venture Agreement. The new company named Artshapes is supposed to operate firstly in the German-speaking region.

Further European countries will be added later. The core of Artshapes will be an online shop in which private persons can buy 3D works of renowned artists and designers. It is the specificity of this shop that the offered items are not yet available, but will be produced by additive technologies just at the moment they are ordered.

For this, the buyer/client can choose the size and material according to the specifications given by the artist or designer. The product range includes artworks and accessories as well as small furniture for the living room. Furthermore, architecture students can for example produce their 3D drafts.

In contrast to the professional and sophisticated design approach of Artshapes, most of the already existing 3D-printing-online shops mainly focus on semi-professional community offers. The most well-known example for this is the leading New York 3D-printing-marketplace Shapeways. The processing offered by Artshapes goes far beyond what is commonly known as 3D printing and thus enables the manufacture of high-quality objects from renowned artists and designers.

On the whole, the majority shareholder and production partner Alphaform dominates more than 10 professional additive manufacturing methods, from stereo lithography to selective laser sintering. Thereby, more than 40 different materials from plastic to titanium as well as surface treatments from painting to stabilizing metal coating can be chosen.