Henrik Lund-Nielsen, Founder and CEO of COBOD on the very real business of 3D construction printing

VoxelMatters Podcast

Welcome to a new episode of the 3dpbm Pulse Podcast, where we get to speak with the additive manufacturing industry’s innovators and decision-makers about their technologies and the businesses they’ve built.

And in this particular case “built” is the perfect word: our guest for today is Henrik Lund-Nielsen, founder and General Manager of COBOD International. COBOD is a globally leading company within the 3D construction printing segment. The company has been constantly – and deservedly - making headlines in both the construction and 3D printing press.

Our research team at 3dpbm has been looking at the construction 3D printing market since it began to form almost a decade ago. Only a handful of startups were present then. Today our 3dpbm Index global directory lists nearly a hundred companies, including 52 construction hardware manufacturers and 77 construction service providers.

As in many young, high-potential market segments, sometimes operators make bigger claims than they can deliver.­­­­

COBOD printers, on the other hand, have already completed many of the most high-profile 3D construction projects. Among others, they’ve 3D printed The BOD, the first 3D printed building in Europe, in 2017. They also completed Europe’s first two- and three-story buildings – when most people still thought it would be impossible to 3D print multi-story houses. In 2019 COBOD also printed the world’s first 3D printed wind turbine tower for GE Renewables.

This is why we asked Mr. Lund Nielsen to join us and help us really understand this industrial segment.

From 2015 to 2017, as the project manager for a government-supported project, Lund-Nielsen led a 3-year research project into the global State of the Art of 3D construction. Prior to founding COBOD, he worked with conventional 3D printing for several years and prior to that he was the CEO of a Danish group with 1.000 employees and 14 daughter companies.

He has a master’s in economics from Denmark and an MBA from the US. He is a frequent speaker on 3D printing and 3D construction printing.­­­­ In 2020 was recognized as one of the 10 most influential executives within the entire AM industry.