The Titomic Ltd (ASX: TTT) share price has been a big mover once again and looks set to finish the week on a high.
In afternoon trade the Melbourne-based additive manufacturing company's shares are up almost 10% to a record high of $3.02.
Incredibly, this means that Titomic's shares have now risen over 127% since this time last month.
It also means that its shares have now returned over 1,400% for shareholders since its IPO in September. To put that in context, if you'd invested $10,000 in its shares at the IPO, your investment would now be worth a staggering $150,000.
Why is the Titomic share price on fire?
To understand this I think it is best to start with what Titomic does.
Titomic has the exclusive rights to commercialise a proprietary and patented process for the application of cold-gas dynamic spraying of Titanium or Titanium alloy particles onto a scaffold to produce a load bearing structure.
The technology was originally co-developed by CSIRO and Force Industries, and is now being marketed by the company as Titomic Kinetic Fusion.
Titomic Kinetic Fusion sprays titanium metal powder at supersonic speeds, causing the particles to impact and bond with the scaffold material.
Management has explained that this unique process mitigates oxidisation issues and size limitations associated with other 3D printing processes. Which means that as well as high volume applications such as sporting goods, automotive, and medical equipment, the technology could be used to manufacture low volume, high value components for the aerospace and defence sectors.
Over the last few weeks the company has announced two new developments that demonstrate the enormous potential that the technology has.
The first was a collaboration agreement with leading golf equipment manufacturer Callaway Golf and the other was a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Italian shipbuilder Fincantieri Australia.
While a MOU is worthless until it become a fully-fledged agreement, investors appear to be optimistic that something material will come of it and have been fighting to get hold of shares.
Should you invest?
Back in December I thought Titomic was a good, but high risk, option for investors due to the amount of growth that was built into its share price. Since then even more growth has been built in, which puts it at a level that I'm uncomfortable with now.
In light of this, I would suggest investors resist the urge to invest and put Titomic on their watchlists instead. It clearly has enormous potential, but it will need to start delivering on this to justify such a share price move.
In the meantime, I think investors ought to consider other up and coming tech shares such as ELMO Software Ltd (ASX: ELO) and Bravura Solutions Ltd (ASX: BVS).
