From five 3D printers in an apartment to a 200+ 3D printer factory selling into 26 of the 27 EU member statesFrom five 3D printers in an apartment to a 200+ 3D printer factory selling into 26 of the 27 EU member states

The business plan was written for a Master's in Entrepreneurship and won an EU start-up grant (about EUR 60K, ranked first among applicants). The factory started with five 3D printers in a small apartment in Targu Jiu. Within a year it pivoted from consumers to engineering buyers, and it became an approved and audited production partner of one of the largest on-demand manufacturing platforms in the EU.

What was broken

A factory in a regional town, selling custom parts to engineers across Europe with a team of four. A buyer needed a trustworthy price from a CAD file without waiting for a person, customer records sat in five separate sales channels, and AI assistants had no way to ask the factory for a quote at all: a web form is not an interface a model can use.

What it cost

• With a team of 4 including contractors, every request answered by hand is time taken from production.
• Five sales channels with different GDPR and marketplace contract rules on who may be contacted.
• No channel at all for the engineers who already ask AI assistants for help.

The brief

Sell custom manufacturing to engineers across Europe from a regional town, with a team of four. That means instant, trustworthy prices from a CAD file, a checkout that works in the buyer's language and currency, and operations that do not need a sales team to answer every request.

• A team of 4 including contractors, so software has to replace headcount.
• Prices must be right: every quote is a commitment the factory has to honour at a margin.
• Export-led: about half of all orders go to German-speaking markets.
• Customer data from five sales channels, with GDPR and marketplace contract rules on who may be contacted.

• Founder: strategy, P&L, pricing, production and sales.
• Hired and trained the staff, on site and digitally, with the SOPs and the ISO 9001 audit documentation he wrote. A team of 4 including contractors, plus external production, logistics, certification and creative partners.
• Hands-on across FDM and SLA production, 3D modelling, the full 3D workflow and design for manufacturing.
• Sole engineer of the software, directing parallel AI coding agents behind tests and review gates.

1. 00

   2022

   A business plan written for a Master's in Entrepreneurship wins an EU start-up grant (ranked first, about EUR 60K, non-repayable). five 3D printers in an apartment in Targu Jiu. No outside equity.

2. 01

   Jun 2022

   Company registered, production starts on five 3D printers in the apartment.

3. 02

   2023

   From consumers to engineering buyers, and approved as a production partner of one of the largest on-demand manufacturing platforms in the EU.

4. 03

   2023 to 2024

   Team hired and trained on site and remotely, SOPs and ISO 9001 audit documentation written, production moved into a dedicated hall (2024). 3Descu is an ISO 9001:2015 certified company.

5. 04

   Scale

   Fleet past 200 3D printers and an export business: buyers in 26 of the 27 EU member states, 45% of orders shipping to Germany.

6. 05

   1 Jun 2026

   First commit of the quoting platform. 929 commits and ~400 merged pull requests follow in under five months.

7. 06

   2 Oct 2026

   The platform live in four languages: English, German, French and Dutch.

8. 07

   18 Oct 2026

   MCP server listed in the official MCP Registry; then Glama and 4 community directories through merged pull requests.

9. 08

   21 to 25 Oct 2026

   A zero-budget press launch: 10 articles in national, regional and international trade press within a week.

10. 100

    Today

    A 200+ 3D printer factory, turnover x65 in three years at a 57% net margin, 2,000+ orders from 1,600+ buyers in 30 countries, rated 4.7/5 by 200+ verified buyers.

What was built

• The team and the operation. Adrian hired and trained the staff, on site and remotely, and wrote the SOPs and the ISO 9001 audit documentation. He is hands-on with every step: FDM and SLA production, 3D modelling and design for manufacturing.
• Instant quoting platform (quote.3descu.com): upload a 3D file, get mesh analysis in the browser (watertight check, volume, bounding box), a price in under a minute, payment by card, bank or PayPal, PDF offers, a customer portal and an admin back office. English, German, French and Dutch.
• An MCP server so AI assistants such as ChatGPT and Claude can quote real parts: 4 tools, keyless, rate-limited, prices calibrated on measured parts. Listed in the official MCP Registry as io.github.cadi27tech/3descu-quote, on Glama, and in 4 community directories through merged pull requests.
• A release gate of 120+ automated checkers running about 260K assertions on every release, with mutation-tested guards so a checker that stops catching errors is itself caught.
• A EUR 0 per month social publisher on GitHub Actions (public repo) that posts a full quarter's calendar on schedule: 45 published, 3 missed, and missed posts are never backfilled.
• A unified customer ledger: five sales channels merged into one audited ledger reconciled to within EUR 1, with GDPR and contract suppression rules enforced in code.

• ISO 9001:2015 certified company, with documented SOPs.
• GDPR and contract rules enforced in code: marketplace-sourced customer records are held suppression-only.
• e-Factura invoicing with EU VAT reverse charge for VIES-valid business buyers.
• Every release passes 120+ checkers and about 260K assertions; guards are mutation-tested, so a checker that stops catching errors is caught itself.
• Public claims (counts, ratings, press) are checked by scripts for drift against the source data.
• The MCP server is keyless and rate-limited, with prices calibrated on measured parts.

How it was tested

Every release passes 120+ checkers and about 260K assertions. Public claims (counts, ratings, press) are checked by scripts for drift against the source data. 3Descu is an ISO 9001:2015 certified company and ranks 1st in Gorj county in three ListaFirme Topul Firmelor 2026 categories (professional and design services), based on filed accounts.

• Everything: code in its own repository, its own Supabase and Stripe accounts, no agency in the loop.
• A public MCP server and a public social-publishing agent that others can inspect.

• React
• TypeScript
• Supabase (PostgreSQL, Edge Functions)
• Stripe
• Model Context Protocol
• GitHub Actions
• Meta Graph API

Links

• The quoting platform
• MCP Registry entry
• Social publishing agent (GitHub)
• Press coverage

1. Buyer review4.7/5 from 200+ buyers

   The precision of the parts were astonishingly good

2. Press21 Oct 2026

   Povestea de succes a unui gorjean: Adrian Capraru a pornit cu 5 imprimante 3D si a construit o fabrica ce produce pentru toata Europa

   In EnglishThe success story of a man from Gorj: Adrian Capraru started with five 3D printers and built a factory that produces for the whole of Europe.

3. Press24 Oct 2026

   Adrian Căpraru, antreprenorul din Gorj care transformă imprimarea 3D într-o afacere europeană

   In EnglishAdrian Capraru, the entrepreneur from Gorj turning 3D printing into a European business.

4. Press24 Oct 2026

   3Descu enables 3D printing quotes through ChatGPT and Claude