Code Moment | "Miaobi Tiancheng" Targets Overseas Hardware Track Growing 131x Annually

It's hard to imagine that in just one year, a product once found only on large factory assembly lines has rapidly grown into a multi-billion-dollar consumer category overseas.

On Amazon, the laser cutter category saw sales growth of 1,310% from 2021 to 2022. Among the leading brands, xTool entered the market at the end of 2021 and reached 800 million yuan in sales by 2022.

Laser cutters have also performed impressively on overseas crowdfunding platforms. On Kickstarter, there have been eight laser cutter campaigns that raised over $1 million, with the highest pulling in nearly $5.93 million.

In the past, laser cutters were predominantly used in industrial settings. Traditional CO2 laser cutters were bulky, expensive, and high-maintenance, making them impractical for widespread consumer use. But soon, semiconductor diode laser cutter technology broke through. Through beam combining, output power steadily increased, rapidly expanding application performance and range. Combined with falling laser head costs, laser cutters found their way into ordinary households across Europe and the United States.

Laser cutters are undoubtedly a niche, specialized category. Yet in an era where consumer electronics is a blood-red ocean of competition and revolutionary innovation is scarce, this segment is showing new opportunities and wealth.

Currently, the number of domestic manufacturers entering the laser cutter space is still small, but competition is already heating up. The earliest representative company in the industry, Aongtu, was founded in 2016. Many other entrants are traditional 3D printer companies, including Creality and Changlang Technology.

Some "crossover" companies have also plunged into this seemingly obscure industry. The leading brand xTool is backed by Maker's Workshop (Makeblock), which originally focused on educational products. It entered this category in the second half of 2021, pulling the company out of its post-"double reduction" policy transformation struggles. This year, it's projected to break 1 billion yuan in revenue.

Even with established leading brands, the industry remains in its early stages with room for growth. New companies with capable teams and solid technology aren't letting this white space go to waste.

The new entrant Miaobi Tiancheng was founded in 2023, with a founding team rich in consumer electronics experience. Founder Yong Tang was formerly Anker's head of R&D, where he established the smart home division and launched robot vacuums. Co-founder Siyu Sun was previously founder and general manager of Shenzhen Yuchengshunhe Trading Co., Ltd., with decades of cross-border e-commerce operations experience. Technical partner Kunrong Chi was formerly a senior smart hardware product manager at xTool, the main person responsible for the laser tools product line, and one of the core members at xTool's founding. The company's marketing lead and supply chain lead also both came from Anker.

Hard Kr learned that Miaobi Tiancheng received angel round investment from Source Code Capital shortly after its founding, with a new funding round currently being finalized. The company has already launched its laser cutter — WeCreat — which has achieved mass production and gone on sale, with pre-orders exceeding one million yuan within two weeks of the pre-sale launch.

Uncovering Latent Potential

For Miaobi Tiancheng, entering after the industry explosion means facing rapidly iterating, fiercely competitive domestic peers. As the market leader, xTool controls the market landscape, temporarily forming a "one superpower, multiple strong players" dynamic.

How to become a disruptor amid this encirclement is the critical question for Miaobi Tiancheng.

Tang is applying lessons from his past experience building robot vacuums at Anker. The trick is solving problems users actually have. "For example, we found that robot vacuums couldn't get onto carpets, and many foreign households have carpets, so we made improvements specifically for that issue." — It sounds cliché to the point of tedium, but it's the essence of what makes a hardware company stand on solid ground.

Returning to the laser cutter product itself, Tang found that existing laser cutters still present usage barriers, requiring consumers to have specialized knowledge and experience. This is where WeCreat sees its opportunity.

Historically, consumer-grade laser cutters and 3D printers have had overlapping audiences, both targeting tech geeks and seasoned DIY enthusiasts. These users have strong hands-on abilities and seek the joy of assembling products themselves. Many laser cutters on the market feature open-frame designs that require consumers to assemble themselves and purchase various accessories.

Beyond the existing geek and DIY enthusiast segments, Miaobi Tiancheng also wants to capture the craft and creative needs of ordinary household users.

A study by the Association For Creative Industries shows that in 2016, 63% of American homemakers participated in at least one craft or creative activity, with 40% of respondents spending over 20 hours per week. The craft and creative population is large and highly engaged.

To capture this time-rich, affluent, hands-capable user base, the user barrier for laser cutters must be lowered further.

WeCreat introduced the industry's first automatic lifting structure, enabling height adjustment and auto-focusing to accommodate more materials. During laser cutter use, consumers work with various materials for engraving — wood, glass, paper, acrylic, plastic, aluminum, and more. Different materials and objects have different heights. For example, engraving on a cup versus printing text on a medal involves completely different heights, requiring consumers to measure heights and adjust the machine. Moreover, leveling the machine is difficult for one person to accomplish alone and requires assistance.

"We want the consumer's experience to be simpler — just put the product in the machine when you want to engrave. Manual adjustment is still quite troublesome." Tang told Hard Kr. "The 'automatic lifting' feature took our team over half a year to develop, involving balance, overall structure... there were quite a few technical challenges."

Beyond automatic lifting, WeCreat's auto-focus capability is another selling point.

Tang told Hard Kr that the problem with manual focusing is that what the human eye sees isn't necessarily accurate. For example, when a customer places a cylindrical object like a cup into the rotary attachment, there may be movement. Sometimes, when placing the object to be engraved, hands inevitably shake slightly and don't align perfectly with the markings. In such cases, the user may not notice immediately, and the engraving result may turn out blurry or fail entirely. Auto-focus solves this problem using a built-in HD camera, preventing misalignment and dramatically improving engraving success rates.

Additionally, Miaobi Tiancheng notes that WeCreat's maximum engraving speed is 600mm/s, while the second-fastest fully enclosed semiconductor laser on the market claims a maximum speed of 160mm/s. In terms of precision, WeCreat achieves 0.01mm motion accuracy, placing it at the leading edge of the industry. "Improving engraving speed is a comprehensive technical challenge — it needs to instantly accelerate and instantly decelerate without compromising engraving precision. This is a significant test for software algorithm design; hardware just outputs, but software has to coordinate speed and precision," Tang explained.

On certain details, WeCreat has also made improvements. Its fully enclosed, integrated design filters out harmful light during use and prevents accidental contact. In Tang's view, as Miaobi Tiancheng's first-generation product, WeCreat may not achieve technical perfection, but it strikes a balance between technology and price. The easy-to-operate integrated design, priced at just over $1,000, is sufficient to cover potential ordinary household users.

An Unknown New Market

Unlike early traditional 3D printer companies that relied on cross-border trading companies to go overseas, Miaobi Tiancheng was clear from its founding that it would pursue a brand-building route.

This certainly relates to the fact that Chinese companies going global have long passed the stage of white-label goods flooding the market. However, it also means that beyond product strength, companies must invest substantial energy and resources into brand building and product operations.

Take leading brand xTool as an example. Beyond extremely rapid product iteration, data shows that xTool's independent site receives nearly 2 million monthly visits, with nearly 30,000 YouTube followers and over 40,000 Instagram followers — the best figures among laser cutter companies.

Miaobi Tiancheng co-founder Siyu Sun plans to start sales from their independent site, using a deposit-then-final-payment model for pre-sales. Additionally, they will seek endorsements from influencers and media based on their product differentiation. Overseas, there are vast numbers of DIY enthusiasts who are skilled at DIY and hands-on work but not necessarily proficient with lasers. WeCreat's design and ease of use brings convenience to these DIY enthusiasts. Beyond this, they will simultaneously use livestreaming and social media to gain user recognition and trust, while also leveraging traditional tools like Facebook and Google to drive traffic and promote the product.

Beyond external marketing, Hard Kr learned that among domestic laser cutter manufacturers, Miaobi Tiancheng is the only company besides xTool to offer its own proprietary app, which includes a material library for consumers to use directly. The app can automatically generate corresponding design files and images through built-in AI.

Going forward, Miaobi Tiancheng plans to continuously iterate its hardware products to meet the diverse needs of the large overseas DIY market, rapidly scaling up.

However, the consumer-grade laser cutter market remains highly nascent, far from reaching explosive growth.

Regarding this category, one investor once told Hard Kr, "The market is rather niche, with less growth potential than 3D printers. The technical barriers are limited — if 3D printer companies want to enter this space, they could easily replace newer companies."

There are also industry views that laser cutters have broader use cases than 3D printing. Beyond the unclear market capacity itself, both 3D printers and laser cutters primarily target European and American markets, competing for the same user base of geeks and seasoned craft enthusiasts. Emerging laser cutter companies undoubtedly face the latent threat of 3D printer companies carving up the market.