planarTECH

Idea

Introduction

planarTECH makes graphene possible, and our mission is to leverage the success of an existing graphene and 2D materials business (sale of R&D equipment) to continue global growth and expand into new, related markets.



The company was founded in 2014 as a provider of process equipment for the growth and characterization of graphene and other emerging 2D materials. The core product line is the planarGROW Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) system and the differentiating feature of the planarGROW product line has been planarTECH's depth of process knowledge and ability to deliver a customized experience to the end users of our product. Every system in the field is unique and has been designed to fit the customer's research and budgetary needs.



Shown above is our largest system in the world, a planarGROW-8S at the National Electronics and Computer Technology Center at the Thailand Science Park. We will leverage the experience building this system to address demand for production systems.

Intended impact

Historically, planarTECH's target market has been R&D institutions (universities, government and corporate research labs, etc.), and this network gives us extensive insight into the pipeline of potential applications for graphene and other 2D materials. While we want to continue to expand this part of our business, we've recently seen increasing demand from industrial customers for scalable and economical production of graphene.

Shown above are actual parts we have received from a customer in Asia who wishes to coat them with graphene. Our analysis has shown that this can now be done at scale and profitably.

Based on such demand, we want to move beyond research labs into commercial scale applications and production. Using a new system design derived from the large-format planarGROW-8S system currently installed at the Thailand Science Park, planarTECH can deliver scalable production systems that allow lower cost production of graphene than, to the best of our knowledge, anything currently available on the market.

Substantial accomplishments to date

2014 - planarTECH LLC founded in the The Woodlands, Texas, USA.

2015 - planarTECH UK Limited founded in Cambridge, UK. Average annual turnover exceeds £1,000,000*.

2019 - planarTECH shipped its 65th system to Southern Methodist University in the USA. System installations span the entire globe with 7 in the UK, 10 in Europe, 17 in North America, 2 in Central/South America, 17 in Asia, 4 in India, and 2 in Australia.

Installations include elite research institutions in the graphene and 2D materials field, such as the Graphene Engineering and Innovation Centre in Manchester, the Cambridge Graphene Centre, and the Centre for Advanced 2D Materials at the National University Singapore.

From 2014 to 2019, cumulative revenues exceeded £5,000,000*.

2020 - planarTECH enters 2020 with 4 purchase orders in hand totalling £295,000. In addition, planarTECH is actively engaged with several industrial customers, including a major petrochemical company in Thailand who has commissioned us to convert pentane to graphene. This work is being carried out in collaboration with our customer, the National Electronics and Computer Technology Center at the Thailand Science Park.

We expect these industrial engagements to lead to planarTECH's first sale of a commercial-scale graphene production system in 2020.

Monetisation strategy

planarTECH's past revenue has come from the direct sales of CVD systems for R&D use, primarily to academic, government and corporate R&D institutions, which has historically provided stable turnover of approximately £1,000,000 per year*. With adequate capitalization, we believe we can continue to grow and expand this business line as we still see steady demand for such systems, especially in the area of emerging 2D materials.

With 65 systems, now in the field, the demand for service and support has increased, which also provides opportunity to realize a steady stream of service revenue, and which we plan to address by hiring additional staff.

However, the main area of growth will come from our increasing number of industrial engagements and an aggressive move into commercial graphene production systems. We have completed a design for a large-scale production system, which we can either sell to customers or use ourselves on a toll-processing basis.

Use of proceeds

45% - Working Capital - As a provider of equipment, our business is working capital intensive and one of the issues we've struggled with is a lack of adequate working capital. A significant portion of our raise will go towards financing incoming orders and basic company operations.

30% - CAPEX - We will acquire our own dedicated production system to be used for customer demos, commercial prototyping and toll processing. The design of the production system is already complete (based on our existing planarGROW-8S).

15% - Application R&D - We will establish a team to work directly with customers and supporting their applications on our production system.

10% - We will hire one staff in a customer service and support role, which will allow existing sales staff to focus efforts on new business.

*source: unaudited management accounts