Short Term Trading Week Starting: 20 November, page-268

Hullo. Had a dig around on TTT and didn't see anything dramatically untoward. They seem to be a long way off being cash positive, and may have a... slightly higher than expected admin/staff cost (check the latest financials).

One thing I can understand, if I can make an uninformed comment (industrial tech is not a speciality) - These sorts of operations seem to be very capital intensive. TTT are building (have built?) a 9m x 3m x xm (can't remember exactly) 3D printer that can chunk out metallic structural components quickly and at a rate many times faster than the average industrial 3D printer. That's going to cost a lot. To build, maintain, and keep running. And they'll need speciality staff too - which may explain the staffing overhead. So they're going to need quite a bit of cash to keep the thing going, and in an industry that is getting a little more crowded every day.

I think if I was going to invest in the company I'd want to know a few things:

1) Where is the cash coming from? And in particular...
2) What clients/orders are possible or on the books already?
3) Is there a market for the products that they will produce? If so, who is that (who are they targeting)...? For instance, they could fund the whole company (for years to come) if they pick up a long-term trailing contract with the DoD for rapid prototyping or vehicle component repair.
4) Who are the competitors in this space? I think people on the threads mentioned A3D and Desktop Metal?
5) Is my staff / admin cash burn likely to be that high on an ongoing basis (or was that more one-off on setup)?

Some things to think about. Buuut... If it's just a punt because you like the tech, well I think that's great too. I hope it works out well for them. Tough space to crack into.. But.. Big metal-printing 3D machines..? Awesome.