Kitware could be doing software consultancy for Formlabs. They already have expertise in 3D slicing [1][2][3], which is just what you need for 3D printing.

This is pure uninformed speculation:

Formlabs look like they have great hardware.

On the other hand they could be under competitive pressure on the software front.

Firstly there's Autodesk who launched Ember as an "Open" design [4] in roughly the same market as Formlabs Form 1/2.

This is straight out of the Joel Spolysky playbook [5] "Smart companies try to commoditize their products’ complements." Autodesk's (MCAD) product is Inventor now transitioning to Fusion 360. 3D printing is the complement. That's why Ember's "electronics are shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license, the same license under which we've shared Ember's resin and mechanical designs; the firmware is licensed under GNU GPL (see the source code itself for the full details)." [4]. You can bet that it will be a cold day in hell before Autodesk releases Inventor and/or Fusion 360's source code under any sort of FOSS license.

Secondly, there's Stratasys that bought GrabCAD mainly to acquire there MCAD software team, several of whom are ex Solidworks / Siemens PLM (Unigraphics/Parasolid/D-Cubed). Expect in the next few years for slicing of STL to be replaced by slicing of native MCAD file formats. That's a step up in development effort and probably needs Modeling kernel (Parasolid, Acis ...).

Thirdly, there's 3D Systemes who decided to compete with lawyers rather than software developers - but eventually that got settled [6].

Possibly strategies for Formlabs:

Either, invest heavily in their software. That's wny they might contract Kitware. Maybe they license a modeling kernel.

Or, get acquired by one of the other (not Autodesk) big three MCAD vendors: (1) Dassault, (2) Siemens PLM, (3) PTC.

[1] https://www.kitware.com/platforms/#3d-slicer

[2] https://www.slicer.org

[3] https://github.com/Slicer/Slicer/

[4] http://learn.ember.autodesk.com/blog/ember-open-source-elect...

[5] https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/06/12/strategy-letter-v/

[6] http://jolt.law.harvard.edu/digest/3d-systems-and-formlabs-s...