Canatu receives funding to strengthen R&D and increase production capacity

 

Canatu Oy, a leading Finnish manufacturer of flexible and 3D formable transparent conductive films and touch sensors, receives a €22M late stage investment from the European Investment Bank. This is one of the largest investments in history in a Finnish start up. The funding will enable Canatu to respond to solid market demand and to invest heavily in R&D and manufacturing expansion. Plans also include the construction of a new, larger factory. Canatu is committed to supporting the Finnish economy with its expansion plans. The company currently has 40 employees worldwide and its headquarters and production facilities are located in Helsinki. The company expects to double its employee headcount and has already started an aggressive recruitment campaign.

Canatu started operations in 2008 as a spin-off from the Helsinki University of Technology (now Aalto University). Canatu’s founding partners – leading senior materials, characterisation and aerosol technology scientists – developed and invented a new carbon nanomaterial, the Carbon NanoBud (CNB), which is a hybrid of carbon nanotubes and fullerenes. They also invented a novel CNB thin film manufacturing technology, Direct Dry Printing (DDP). 

Aalto University Professor Esko Kauppinen, one of the founders and a Canatu board member, says: “I have had the great pleasure to see the company evolve from a research lab to entering the market and beginning commercial manufacturing.  Canatu is an exemplary success story in the field of nanotechnology.”  In 2012, Canatu was the first in the world to demonstrate roll-to-roll manufacturing of carbon nanomaterials directly on substrate using its DDP machine. The company started mass production deliveries in 2015. After more than a year in series production for a demanding automotive customer, without any field returns and with an excellent quality record, Canatu is ready to take the next steps to expand its capacity for leading edge products targeted at innovative consumer electronics brands and leading automotive companies.