BICO Group Dashed Our 3D Bioprinting Dreams

They promised us the Star Trek replicator and all we got were some plastic trinkets. With a few notable exceptions, 3D printing has largely been a nothing burger for investors as the promises of “distributed manufacturing” and “a 3D printer in every household” never really panned out. On the healthcare side, 3D printing has made inroads in the dental space, though perhaps the most exciting thesis – 3D bioprinting – just hasn’t seen much progress.

Being able to print organs or tissue on demand sounds great, but we’re still waiting for that to move out of R&D labs. When we first invested in BICO Group (BICO ST), that was our thesis – find exposure to a 3D bioprinting firm with traction as opposed to the mess Organovo (ONVO) turned out to be, something which we took a lot of flak for pointing out back in the day when ARK was flirting with them. Today, we’re going to see if BICO Group deserves to remain in our disruptive tech portfolio by answering two questions. Has revenue growth stalled? Has our thesis changed?

The Original Thesis

Six years ago we first highlighted BICO Group (then CELLINK) in a piece that criticized Organovo’s lack of revenue growth (we’re still waiting for that growth). At that time, BICO had a market cap of $250 million and was under our $1 bill