Belgian 3D printing software firm Materialise files for U.S. IPO

(Reuters) - Belgium's Materialise NV, which provides 3D printing software to industrial manufacturers and medical equipment makers, filed with U.S. regulators on Wednesday for an initial public offering of American Depositary Shares. Materialise said it had provided more than 8,000 3D printing software licenses to over 4,000 customers, including Ford Motor Co, Airbus and Boeing Co. 3D printing technology, used to create solid objects from a digital model by laying down successive thin layers of material, has been around for more than 25 years but has only caught the imagination of investors and customers in recent years. Shares of Voxeljet AG, a German maker of commercial 3D printers, doubled in their market debut in October. Materialise, which also serves consumer industries, said it plans to use proceeds from the offering to expand its business, the company told the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in a filing. (http://r.reuters.com/muq28v) The company's revenue rose 16 percent to 68.7 million euros ($94.6 million) in 2013. The company said it expected to raise about $125 million from the offering but the final size of the IPO may be different. Piper Jaffray and Credit Suisse are the lead underwriters of the offering. The filing did not reveal how many shares Materialise planned to sell or their expected price. The amount of money a company plans to raise in its initial IPO filings is used to calculate the registration fees. ($1 = 0.7263 Euros) (Reporting by Amrutha Gayathri in Bangalore; Editing by Don Sebastian)