Why a 3-D Printer Giant Just Bought MakerBot

MakerBot founder Bre Pettis, the poster child for mainstream 3-D printing, merges his company with an industrial printing giant.

The Brooklyn-based 3-D printer startup MakerBot Industries just got a little less hip, since announcing yesterday that it had sold for $403 million in stock to Stratasys. The public company, founded in 1989 and based in Minnesota and Israel, is one of the two large manufacturers of expensive, industrial machines. It competes with 3D Systems, which already has a consumer 3D printer line.