HPViCo takes in 1.5 million
HPViCo, which has developed hard scratch-resistant coatings for e.g. mobile phone screens, takes in a total of SEK 1.5M, of which SEK 600k as equity capital and SEK 900k in the form of grants. The main investors are LiU Invest and Linnaeus Venture, but founders and staff also contribute capital.
The company was founded by researchers at Linköping University and Linneuniversitetet in Växjö and is based on the research areas of glass materials and thin film technology. The result is a transparent, hard and very scratch-resistant material for covering mobile phones, touch screens and other glass or plastic surfaces. The coating is done using sputtering technology.
- That LiU Invest makes a joint investment with our counterpart in Växjö and that we can combine an investment with a contribution from Vinnova shows that the innovation support system around our Swedish universities works, says Jonas Nilsson, LiU Invest.
In the spring of 2018, it was agreed with the founders of HPViCo that the company would receive support and advice and that an investment would be made when milestones were reached. In practice, this meant extra support from LiU Invest in exchange for ownership shares.
- We have received a lot of help from LiU Innovation. In addition to counseling, we have participated in the Venture Arena and also the Summer Match where, with the help of matched students, we found new customer contacts. This has been very valuable for us and I really recommend other researchers to take this type of help, says Bo Jonson, professor at Linne University, co-founder and CEO of HPViCo.
- We see ourselves as a catalyst and thanks to the collaboration with LiU Invest, we gain greater financial muscle. It is of course extra fun to see that the staff also contribute a substantial part of the capital. It shows commitment and that they believe in their company, says Emma Hermansson, CEO of Linnaeus Venture AB.
The investment will go towards marketing, customer meetings and further development of the coating method, for example coating plastic. A thin and hard layer of glass must be laid on the outside of transparent plastic so that it becomes as scratch-resistant as glass.