Pivotal moment as Nanoco completes first commercial production order
Nanoco Group has completed its first ever commercial production order.
The Runcorn tech company, which develops materials used in the manufacture of monitors and TV screens and technologies for medical imaging and the early diagnosis of cancer, has made two shipments of two different first generation materials for use in infra-red sensing applications in electronic devices.
As previously announced, the board’s expectations were for a first commercial production order prior to the end of 2023 and that the first use of the group’s materials would be for low volume applications during fiscal year 2024 and 2025. Today’s announcement is in line with these expectations and supports the 2024 revenue guidance given in the group’s preliminary results published on October 17, 2023.
At that time, the University of Manchester spin-out also set out its intention to continue developing new infra-red sensing materials.
Earlier this month, Nanoco announced a two-year development agreement with a key customer on one of those new materials.
The second generation materials will achieve even higher levels of performance and secure Nanoco’s pipeline of product development for a number of years to come, the group said.
The planned retained funds from its successful litigation case with South Korean electronics giant Samsung have allowed Nanoco to enter global electronics supply chains as a robust partner while also enabling the accelerated development of new leading edge materials.
Demand is expected to grow gradually, enabling Nanoco to deliver the goal of being self-financing during calendar year 2025. Earlier adoption in more applications, or by more end users, has the potential to accelerate that expectation.
If the infra-red sensing technology is adopted in high volume, mass market products, demand for Nanoco materials has the potential to grow very rapidly beyond calendar year 2025.
CEO, Brian Tenner, said: “Today’s announcement records a critical milestone in Nanoco’s evolution from an R&D first mover to an electronics materials production company.
“With our customers’ global reach and ambitions for this technology, we expect initial low volume demand to increase gradually due to more end users and a more diverse range of applications.
“We have now delivered all of the goals set for CY23, winning the IP litigation and entering commercial production.
“Through careful use of the retained funds from the IP litigation, we will continue our leading edge R&D, our efforts to deliver further value from our validated IP portfolio, and continued commercial production of high quality nanomaterials from our Runcorn facility.”
He added: “Following the intended return of capital in 2024, the board is confident that growing interest and opportunities for sensing materials and the potential for leveraging the group’s IP portfolio will deliver increases in shareholder value in the medium term.”
