UpNano further strengthens R&D and US expansion with capital increase
High-Resolution 3D-Printing
A successful capital increase significantly strengthens the innovation management and business development of 2PP 3D-printing specialist UpNano GmbH (Vienna, Austria). The fresh capital has been financed entirely by existing investors, amongst them IGO Industries, an international holding based in Austria. The investment will be used to further strengthen the continuous innovation process around the highly successful NanoOne 2PP 3D-printer range. This will include speeding up the already fastest 2PP 3D-printing process in the industry. Thus, making the technology even more interesting for serial production. Also, the fresh capital will boost the US expansion of the company.
UpNano Management Team (from left) Henrik Akesson (CBO), Denise Hirner (COO), Anton Travnicek (CFO), Erika Bechtold (VP US), Bernhard Küenburg (CEO), Peter Gruber (CTO)
© UpNano GmbH
Triple sales in 2021, current production up 50% and successful entry into the US market: the demand for the NanoOne 2PP 3D-printer range by UpNano is in full swing. The extremely compact desk top print system offers high-resolution 3D-printing across twelve orders of magnitude and within the fastest production times in the industry. Now a capital increase by existing investors will boost both, the development of further innovations – including those that will speed up manufacturing times even more – and the expansion into the US market.
Innovation by Continuity
“In times of bumpy rides on the stock exchange and wild changes of ownerships in the highly competitive 2PP 3D-printing industry”, comments Bernhard Küenburg, CEO of UpNano, “we are grateful for a profitable 2021 and the trust – and deep pockets – of our existing investors. They alone financed our recent capital increase. This ensures our steady and focused innovation process as well as our independence and our expansion plans.” The existing investors include the internationally renowned IGO Industries Group, an industry holding based in Austria with more than 24.000 employees and several billion EUR turn-over.
The capital increase has been timed well as UpNano experiences a strong increase in sales numbers and hence optimizes its supply chain management. As part of this process, UpNano gains even more control over the delivery of parts, the assembly process and the quality control – and hence can guarantee customers a faultless product and speedy delivery.
This optimized process also allows to further intensify the company’s drive for innovation and for this the fresh capital has been earmarked. “Already our NanoOne range of printers offers the widest range of printable sizes and with 8 Mio. voxels per second the highest speed on the market. It also is capable of printing with living cells”, explains Denise Hirner, Chief Operating Officer and co-founder of UpNano, “but that is just the start. Even faster manufacturing speeds will enable true series production and more innovations will address the needs of specific industries. To this end we will expand our R&D department and intensify our efforts.” Two recent patent applications of the company concerning printing speed emphasize this commitment to ongoing optimization and innovation. Even more, UpNano’s innovation engineers currently focus on a well-known complication of 2PP 3D-printing that compromises precision when producing large scale specimens, and their solution will hit the market soon.
Successful US Market Entry
The fresh capital investment will also give further drive to the US expansion that UpNano initiated in April when recruiting Erika Bechtold, formerly Director of Technology Commercialization at Harvard’s Office for Technology Development. A first unit has already been sold to an industry customer in the US and negotiations with academic partners there are well progressed. In the wake of this immediate success, the US activities will be intensified and further leads initiated. Also, ideas are forming for establishing facilities in the US for permanently demonstrating first-hand the unsurpassed capabilities and dimensions of the NanoOne range of printers. “We know from experience,” adds Denise Hirner, “that people are flabbergasted when they realise what big technical advantages are contained within the small bench top-size of our NanoOne printer. Seeing is believing and this is what we will offer soon in the US, too.”
All in all, the recent successes of UpNano and the continuous trust of the investors allows the company both, to further strengthen its position in the market and remaining innovation leader in 2PP 3D-laser printing industry.
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