A young Warwickshire entrepreneur has gone from replacing his mom’s dishwasher with a homemade 3D printer to becoming possibly the youngest ever recipient of two King’s Award for Enterprise.
Mitchell Barnes, who is about to turn 30, founded RYSE 3D in 2017 after demonstrating the potential of additive manufacturing to fellow university students. Since then, he has built the Shipston-on-Stour company into one of the UK’s most exciting AM businesses, supplying high-performance production parts to 23 of the world’s hypercar projects and winning contracts in aerospace, defence and energy.
The firm has grown to nearly £5 million in annual turnover, with almost half generated by international orders. Success overseas has now earned RYSE 3D a King’s Award for International Trade, following its King’s Award for Innovation in 2024 — making Barnes potentially one of the youngest business leaders to oversee two such honours.
“To win one King’s Award is special, but to win a second for growing the business overseas is mind-blowing,” said Mitchell, who runs the company with his brother Cameron. “When I started in additive manufacturing, I wanted to prove it could move from prototyping into series production, and that’s exactly what we’ve done.”
He said the company has focused on exporting UK-developed technology to international customers, with global sales rising 2,322% since 2023. Once reliant on the United States, RYSE 3D now also supplies clients in Denmark, France and Latvia.
Export growth has given the company confidence to reinvest more than £1 million in new printers, research and development, lighter materials and the launch of its own UK-engineered LANDR printer. Its workforce has grown to 18, and production capacity now stands at around four million components a year.
Mitchell added that the awards reflect the efforts of the whole workforce and the satisfaction of seeing components designed in Shipston-on-Stour enter production overseas for major global brands. He believes the second King’s Award will help the business win further work in the US and other international markets.
RYSE 3D’s scalable production model requires no tooling investment and uses widely available engineering polymers, making it attractive to manufacturers seeking to reduce supply-chain risk, capital expenditure and environmental impact. While automotive and motorsport provided the company’s initial market, it is increasingly proving the value of 3D-printed production parts across aerospace, construction, energy, medical and defence.
Adam Archer, who progressed from making coffees in the market town to leading a team of 3D printing engineers, said the company’s second King’s Award would help it secure more work and showcase additive manufacturing expertise from Shipston-on-Stour around the world.