Ryse 3D

From Bedroom to Billion-Pound Ambitions: How RYSE 3D Re-engineered the 3D Printing Game

Ryse 3D — 15/12/2025

In the high-stakes world of advanced manufacturing, the trajectory of RYSE 3D stands out as a masterclass in accidental entrepreneurship, technical prowess, and bold ambition. What started with a young student putting together his own equipment is now a multimillion-pound technology development firm challenging the global status quo in serial production 3D printing.

The founder’s journey began not in a boardroom, but in a garage. Starting to "mess about with 3D printers from 12 years old," Mitchell Barnes leveraged an unusually supportive design and technology teacher to learn complex skills like milling, turning, casting, and CAD/CAM programming—all before leaving school. This early, deep immersion in traditional manufacturing principles proved critical.

The real spark, however, came during university. Unable to afford the model required to graduate, Mitchell built his own 3D printer from scratch to produce it. This resourceful act immediately exposed a massive market inefficiency. He seized the opportunity by sensing a gap in the market amongst students learning the craft, offering his services to fellow students at half the price the university was charging for traditional clay models.

"It was sort of accidentally entrepreneurial," he recalls. "All I saw was companies in the industry that were either doing prototyping or ones and twos …I knew that there was potential for small to medium volume production and this could be a game changer.”

Capability: Manufacturing the Competitive Edge

RYSE 3D’s breakthrough came from shifting 3D printing from a prototyping novelty to a genuine production solution. It was one of the first companies to successfully change the industry from "just ones and twos and test parts to proper series automated production." This focus on volume and consistency has led to them completing over two and a half million parts in approved, automated production.

This capability is underpinned by a radical, in-house technology strategy. The Warwickshire-based business designs and builds its own 3D printers called LANDR, leading to massive cost efficiencies and a significant competitive advantage over its more established rivals.

“Our machines retail at about £18,000, which is nearly ten times cheaper than what is currently out there in the marketplace” explains Mitchell. “Furthermore, our printers - built from 99% UK parts - take up less space, are quicker and are more precise. It’s a real win-win for us and for our growing customer base for LANDR 3D printers.”

Having its own printers, coupled with proven series production used in 23 hyper-car projects, aerospace components and the medical sector, has proved a highly competitive international sales tool. This has resulted in rapid export growth, with sales jumping from £50,000 in the first few years to over £2million annually in exports to the US, the EU and the Middle East.

The Attitude Blueprint

Beyond the technology, the company’s success lies in its culture. Having grown the business from one (founder Mitchell) to 25 people, the team is deliberately recruited not for prior 3D printing expertise, but for attitude and the ability to master process discipline.

"A lot of our workforce either comes from logistics, coffee shops, or fast food," he notes. "They are process driven people... that’s manufacturing. Follow the process. Start to finish. Deliver the product on time and on quality."

Furthermore, RYSE 3D battles the historical “jobbing shop" reputation of the 3D printing industry by embedding deep client consultation. The firm prides themselves on asking: “Should we even 3D print this in the first place?” By understanding the full end-to-end life cycle of the part, it ensures its work meets the highest standards of cost, quality and time.

Finally, the company invests heavily in its people, offering full private healthcare for employees and their families, and complete flexibility for family and health needs. This demonstrates a core philosophy: investing in the long-term happiness of the staff is the only way to sustain rapid, reliable growth. Ryse 3D’s model proves that radical technology and human-centric culture are the ideal blend for manufacturing success.

Blueprint for global success as 3D printing entrepreneur secures a UK first by securing two King’s Awards

Ryse 3D — 13/05/2026

A young Warwickshire entrepreneur has gone from replacing his mom’s dishwasher with a homemade 3D printer to becoming arguably the youngest ever recipient of two King’s Award for Enterprise.

Mitchell Barnes, who is about to turn 30-years-old, founded RYSE 3D in 2017 after proving out the importance of additive manufacturing (AM) in future production techniques for university friends.

Since then, he has created one of the UK’s biggest disruptors in AM, supplying high performance production parts to 23 of the world’s hypercar projects and delivering complex components to exciting new contracts in aerospace, defence and energy.

These orders have taken the Shipston-on-Stour firm to nearly £5m in annual turnover, with nearly half of that emanating from international orders to the US, Denmark and Latvia.

Global success has led to the business securing the King’s Award for International Trade, following its earlier success in the ‘Innovation’ category in 2024.

“To win one King’s Award is special, to win a second for our efforts in growing the business overseas is mind-blowing, I still can’t quite believe it,” explained Mitch, who runs the company with his brother Cameron.

“When I first started in additive manufacturing, I wanted to prove that we could go from prototyping into series production and that’s exactly what we’ve done…supplying the most complex automotive, aerospace and renewables components in batches of a few thousand and, in some cases, tens of thousands.”

He continued: “Importantly, we wanted to demonstrate that we could take UK technology and export it as something international firms want. The last three years have proved this was the right approach, with global sales up 2,322% since 2023.

“We have also expanded our reach. The US used to be our only destination and, whilst this will always be a primary market, we are now supplying clients in Denmark, France and Latvia.”

The growth in exports for RYSE 3D has given it the confidence to reinvest more than £1m into new printers, R&D, lighter materials and the launch of its own UK-engineered 3D ‘LANDR’ printer.

Its team has also expanded to 18, some of whom were coffee baristas transformed into 3D printing engineers.

The combination of its own large format printers and industry-leading technology has boosted its capacity to confidently print four million components every year.

Mitchell continued: “This is what makes all the hard work worthwhile. There is no greater sense of achievement, for our workforce and senior management team, than seeing a part carefully engineered in Shipston-on-Stour entering production overseas for a high-profile global brand.

“To have two concurrent King’s Awards is the stuff of dreams and every member of our team needs to take time out to appreciate what they have helped us achieve. We’ve already won work in the US based on winning one award, I can’t wait to get back overseas and tell people we are a double winning King’s Award business!”

RYSE 3D’s production process is highly scalable, requires no tooling investment and uses widely available engineering polymers.

This makes it easy to adopt internationally and attractive to companies looking to derisk supply chains, reduce capital expenditure and lower environmental impact – three features that are increasingly important to meet ‘Net Zero’ challenges and address recent global supply chain uncertainty.

Whilst automotive and motorsport offered it the initial market opportunity, the company is fast proving that 3D printing can also deliver production parts to aerospace, construction, energy generation, medical and defence.

Adam Archer, who switched from making coffees in the market town to leading a team of 3D printing engineers, concluded: “The pace of evolution at RYSE is incredible and I still have to pinch myself when I think we’re making performance parts that are changing the way some of the most ambitious hypercars and technology are built.

“Our second King’s Award is the icing on the cake, and we look forward to using the prestigious accolade to help us secure more work and orders that see additive manufacturing expertise in Shipston-on-Stour exported all over the world.”

For further information, please visit www.ryse3d.com or follow the company across its social media channels.