Material witness

1  It ain’t what you do, it’s the way you manufacture it

In England, if you ask your neighbour to name an advanced material, you would probably get a lot of blank stares and one or two mentions of graphene. This is particularly true of the Manchester neighbourhood, where the wonder material was invented. But graphene remains in the yet-to-be-proven-commercially folder for most corporate venturers. It is of great interest, but of more pressing interest are mundane materials, whose functionality is being advanced through manufacturing innovation.

Picodeon, a Finnish nanotech business whose presentation wowed the conference, is a good case in point. It has a patented advanced manufacturing technique that transforms the functionality of separators in batteries, thereby extending their power and reducing their size. The separator material is mundane – a plastic of some description – but the manufacturing technique is highly advanced – it turns plastic into an advanced material.

So advanced materials need to be seen in a broader context. How can we advance plain – cheap and abundant – materials through advanced manufacturing? How does “mat-u-facturing” grab you?

2  Conventional or established materials should not be overlooked in the overall advanced materials supply chain

We need a secure and reliable source of metals such as nickel, cobalt and manganese to fuel the next generation of batteries. So it was great to hear from an advanced mining company, Clean Teq Holdings, which is quoted on the Australian Stock Exchange.

In addition to these metals for batteries, Clean Teq is preparing to mine the world’s largest source of scandium, a rare metal which, when combined with aluminium, makes it corrosion-resistant, weldable and stronger – attributes desperately sought by transportation and other industries. Clean Teq’s CEO, Sam Riggall, had an orderly queue of customers and collaborators waiting for him at the end of his presentation. He already has an agreement with Airbus Group.

3  British start-ups are becoming less British and more international

Over the years I have done more work with Germans, French, Australians and Canadians than with Brits. Despite Britain being my home market, I have felt more comfortable with foreigners. Why? A bit of a generalisation coming up here, but some Brits get lazy when it comes to capital-raising and customer-focused business development. They think that the world will come to us rather than us having to get out to the world.

Chris Reichhelm of Peloton Advisors, a London-based specialist recruitment consultant, had good insights on this. A native of the US, Chris has been in the UK long enough to learn the art of euphemism and understatement. “I do wonder whether the British are at a cultural disadvantage on this,” he said. “British technologists are renowned for their brilliance, creativity and particular way of working. They excel at innovation and invention. They know their own mind and are fiercely independent. The culture of many of their young businesses is similar in nature and it makes me wonder just how comfortable they are when dealing with a corporate’s priorities instead of their own interests.”

But Chris feels this is changing and I agree. Certainly, the Brit start-ups presenting were appealing clearly and strongly to an international audience. Innovate UK, the UK government’s innovation agency, was most unBritish in its compelling presentation of its acceleration and derisking programme for start-ups. European VCs were very happy to discover a long pipeline of early-stage British innovation in advanced materials and several other industries. It made me proud to be British – in an understated kind of way of course.

4  Signing non-disclosure agreements is becoming an overelaborate mating ritual

One Brit start-up was complaining that he could not speak to corporate VCs because he could not agree on a non-disclosure agreement (NDA). He is on to something. There are some serious misunderstandings we need to sort out if early-stage advanced materials innovation is going to be considered seriously by large corporates, and innovation therefore more likely to get commercialised.

Start-ups want guarantees that corporates won’t take their intellectual property (IP), play with it and file patents of their own, which is fair enough. Corporates do not want to sign NDAs that prevent them from filing patents in areas of innovation where they may already be active, which is also fair enough.

One answer to this problem is to focus initially on non-confidential information. This gives the start-up and corporate some getting-to-know-you time to build trust. But sooner or later they are going to have to talk IP. I have no easy answers here. It would help if more corporates were able to explain in advance how they collaborate on IP development with start-ups. Any volunteers should drop me a line.

5  Alternative finance for advanced materials – bring it on

A personal triumph for me was seeing a serial fintech entrepreneur and angel investor friend of mine get excited by advanced materials. I should say pleasure rather than triumph because he has not invested in anything yet, but the fact that he is interested is very encouraging.

The advanced materials sector certainly needs angels. They cannot rely on financial VCs because they have mostly lost their bottle and are looking for internet deals. Corporate VCs are interested, but typically have a highly focused approach, which means they are unlikely to invest at an early stage. It was also great to see Fuse 3, a venture debt provider, working the conference floor. Venture debt could transform the lives and prospects of early-stage advanced materials companies. Venturing, like any financial service, is ripe for disruption.

6  Next up, biomaterials

“Implants, surgeries, and tissue repair will always have costs and risks,” says Andrew Haughian, of advanced materials investment specialist Pangaea Ventures, “but biomaterials innovation is doing some heavy lifting to bring both down.”

Our next conference in April will have biomaterials on the agenda. There is some really exciting innovation going on and, let’s face it, biomaterials and the bionic man quickens the angel investor’s pulse more than composites and adhesives. The truth of course is that it is what biomaterials can do with composites and adhesives that will enable the bionic man.

It is all in the story-telling. Let me know if you would like to tell your advanced materials story. In the meantime, I wish a happy festive season to all my readers.