Set to close a $7-million Series B financial round this month (for total capitalization of about $14 million), NanoHorizons is making the transition this year from startup to market-focused enterprise, expanding an already robust sales base of several million dollars, according to David Woodle, President and CEO. Last year, the company formed partnerships to provide Smart Silver antimicrobial protection for Hill-Rom health care products and Indo Poly (Thailand) Ltd. polyester yarns.
Woodle says the company also seeks business partnerships with manufacturers of industrial coatings and paints as well as makers of commercial and consumer products ranging from toothbrushes to cutting boards.
“Our strategy is to establish alliances with individual brands and extend the use of nano-silver across the product lines of our clients,” Woodle says.
Smart Silver, which remains active for the lifetime of the materials to which it is added, says James Delattre, Vice President of Global Sales and Marketing, creates a new standard of durability for antimicrobial additives. Each SmartSilver particle is about 10 nanometers in diameter and contains 10,000 molecules of silver. Its creation begins with an original golf-ball-sized lump of silver that is subdivided more than 100,000 times to produce billions of similar-sized particlesenough to cover four football fields. The tiny size of each particle exposes vast numbers of silver ions, which neutralize target microbes. “The ions peel away from individual nano particles like the layers of an onion,” Delattre says. The result is a life-time release of long recognized antimicrobial properties of silver within the materials to which SmartSilver is added.
Woodle expects employment in the company to exceed 100 within two to three years and sales between $50 million and $100 million over the next five years.
Source: NanoHorizons, David Woodle, James Delattre
Writer: Joseph Plummer
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