For a glorious five-minute period on Wednesday, David Budge was worth $130 million. It didn’t last long. Such is the fickle nature of the sharemarket that the Perth engineer’s wealth, and the value of his 3-D metal printing company Aurora Labs, had almost halved by the end of the day.
But considering the company did not exist two years ago — and was formed on the back of a Facebook post — the past week’s rise to prominence has been extraordinary.
Yesterday, Aurora finished a remarkable week of trading to be valued at $169 million, in turn valuing Mr Budge’s stake, which is in escrow for the next 21 months, at $73.5 million.
In the meantime, Aurora became the talk of the Terrace as market watchers asked: “What the hell is going on with A3D?”
It is almost akin to winning Lotto, and the type of sudden share price rise of which small listed companies dream. But, according to Mr Budge, this is no overnight success story. This has been a long time in the making.
“I’ve been interested in 3-D printing for 20-odd years,” he told WestBusiness after this week’s share price spike.
“Two decades ago I invented a device I called a house printer, which prints concrete and bricks. And since then I’ve kept my eye on the technology.
“I saw there could enormous potential printing and producing a low-cost 3-D metal printer.”
WestBusiness’ interest in Aurora began in October 2014 when word spread around tech circles of a Perth-based 3-D printing company that had pulled its Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign after raising $300,000 in a week because of concerns over intellectual property. That same company later claimed to have interest from NASA for one of its larger-scale printers, which it claimed could print 100 times faster than those currently on the market, and at a much lower cost.
At the time Mr Budge said he was sitting on a billion-dollar idea.
WestBusiness toured its nondescript warehouse office in Myaree last year — a tour during which Mr Budge declined to unveil the printers he was creating because of privacy concerns.
Since then the company has moved to the aptly named Ambi- tious Link in Bibra Lake, listed on the ASX, grown to a staff of 22 and shot up more than 1455 per cent from its 20¢ listing price — making a few people rich in the process.
Despite all the hype, the secrecy around its small-scale and large-scale metal printers, which are still six months and 12 months away from release, has continued.
“Everyone who comes on our premises has to sign a nondisclosure agreement,” Mr Budge said. “And we have some pretty tight protocols with all the staff. They all have to sign two non-disclosure agreements, and there are only a small number of people who actually know how (the printers) work, so it’s quite a secret process.”
The secrecy means the rapid share price jump over the past week has percolated through pure blue-sky speculation — a hope that its two printers will, for example, enable remote mine sites to print parts on-site, rather than waiting weeks for replacements.
Another part of the rise undoubtedly comes from Mr Budge’s confidence in the product, and the belief that he has something big.
“I do get people asking me: ‘Why is a small start-up from Perth doing this, and not some company like GE?’ It’s an obvious question. And all I can say to that is we’ve invented some very revolutionary technology that, as far as we’re aware, no one has developed so far. Now we’re moving fullsteam ahead.”
A3D Price at posting:
$3.08 Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
