Two of China's best-known additive manufacturing companies have drawn questions from regulators in recent weeks. Neither set of questions was mainly about the printers. According to 3D Printing Industry's report on Farsoon's filing, the 3D printer maker has filed plans for a private placement of up to RMB 3.91 billion (about $478.7 million), and the filing drew a detailed inquiry from the Shanghai Stock Exchange. A day later, the same outlet reported that China's securities regulator, the CSRC, had sent UnionTech a list of questions about its application to list on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
The two cases differ in their details, but they point in the same direction. Chinese AM companies want much more capital, and the regulators reviewing those requests want to know where the machines will go, who controls the companies and how equity has been handed out. One caveat before the details: FilamentFeed has not read either original filing. Every figure below comes from 3D Printing Industry's reporting and has not been checked against the primary documents.
Farsoon's Plan: Build Printers, Then Mostly Keep Them
The placement would pay for three things: more equipment manufacturing capacity, an integrated additive manufacturing service platform and a global operations centre. The filing was accompanied by a 93-page response from the company's reporting accountant, and the most notable part of that document is the plan for the new production lines.
In the first year of production at the expanded facility, Farsoon projects building 480 standard metal printers for its own use and 40 for export, so about 92 percent of first-year output stays in-house. In the following two years, internal allocation would rise to 560 units and exports to 90, with total output reaching 650 units. Internal consumption would drop to zero, and the full 650 units would shift to external sale, only in year four.
The machines kept in-house would serve as production equipment for the new service platform, with their costs settled internally at manufacturing cost. In practice, the company is using its capital raise to build a large fleet of its own metal printers at cost, then selling parts made on them instead of selling the printers. It's a vertical integration move. The equipment business would supply the service business, and the margin would be earned on parts instead of hardware.
Why the Exchange Asked About Capacity
A stock exchange has good reason to ask why a printer maker needs a lot more factory capacity. The utilisation figures in the filing show that Farsoon's existing production lines have run well below their peak. Utilisation was 123.87 percent in 2023, meaning output went beyond nominal capacity. It then fell to 96.55 percent in 2024 and 70.42 percent in 2025, before recovering partly to 83.39 percent in the first half of 2026.
The production-to-sales ratio for H1 2026 was 68.92 percent. It is tempting to read that as the company making far more machines than it sold, but the accountant's filing notes that the ratio covers machines sold externally, units transferred to the company's own fixed assets and equipment allocated to research. That broad definition means the ratio may not directly reflect external demand for Farsoon's machines.
Seen that way, sending most early output to an internal service platform answers an obvious objection: new capacity needs somewhere to go.
The new production base is expected to need around 430 additional production staff. The return projections are modest, though. The filing puts the after-tax internal rate of return at 14.17 percent, against an average of roughly 20 percent among comparable projects cited. According to the report, that is partly because most of the standard metal printers produced in the early years would be transferred internally at cost, without the markup applied to external sales. When 86 to 92 percent of a product line's output is transferred at cost, the overall return on the project comes down accordingly.
Western investors will recognise the model. 3D Printing Industry's report notes that Stratasys merged three service bureaus into a single division, Stratasys Direct Manufacturing, in 2015, and that the division grew 12.1 percent year over year in Q2 2026 with its highest backlog to date.
UnionTech's Questions Are About Control
UnionTech submitted its application to list on the HKEX Main Board on June 26, 2026, with Haitong International as sole sponsor. According to 3D Printing Industry, the CSRC has asked the company to address eight areas, in supplementary requirements sent to five companies during an overseas listing review cycle running from September 20 to 30, 2026.
The core issue is governance. UnionTech says it has "no controlling shareholder and no actual controller," and the CSRC asked it to justify that with specific evidence. A concerted action agreement signed in January 2023 binds Ma Jinsong and 12 other shareholders, who together hold approximately 18.12 percent of the company. The regulator wants to understand how this group resolves internal disagreements on major decisions and whether the company's control could shift materially once the agreement expires.
The regulator also asked about past equity transfers made at a price of zero or one yuan, including whether the transferors paid the required income taxes and whether any amounted to tunneling of benefits. It also asked about equity incentives granted to external consultants, including who they are and how their purchase prices compared with those offered to employees and outside investors.
Not every question concerns ownership. The CSRC also asked whether UnionTech's business involves AI large models or other AI applications and, if so, whether it complies with China's Administrative Measures for Generative Artificial Intelligence Services.
What It Means for Makers
Most FilamentFeed readers won't buy a Farsoon metal system or a UnionTech machine. The direction these companies take could still affect the market further down. Three points stand out.
Industrial hardware vendors increasingly want to sell you parts. If Farsoon's plan goes ahead, hundreds of new metal printers will run inside a service platform owned by the company that builds them. For small shops and product designers, that could mean more capacity and possibly sharper pricing for metal parts on demand. It could also mean competing against service bureaus that pay manufacturing cost for their machines.
Underused factories are worth watching. Utilisation falling from above 100 percent to about 70 percent in two years, then recovering to 83 percent, shows how quickly a vendor's factory load can swing. Vendors with spare capacity often look for new revenue, which can reach the prosumer and desktop market through price cuts, new product lines or bundled services. That is an inference, not something either report states.
Governance matters for supply reliability. The CSRC's questions about control, equity transfers and consultant incentives are the kind of history a listing reviewer wants explained, and the reports do not suggest a finding against UnionTech. Still, where a hardware supplier's ownership is unclear, its long-term commitments on spare parts, firmware and support are harder to predict. Buyers of industrial machines should follow how these reviews end.
Neither company has completed its plan on the evidence of these reports. Farsoon's placement is at the filing and inquiry stage, and UnionTech has to answer the CSRC's questions as part of its Hong Kong listing application. FilamentFeed will report on both as the primary filings become available.
