NEWS. GRAFOID NEW PRIVATE PLACEMENT @5$ SOON!!!
April 2014 Letter to Shareholders
Dear Shareholders,
This summary provides an overview and an update on Grafoid’s recent scientific and commercial advances that support our aim of assuming a global leadership role in graphene’s future commercial development.
First, I wish to congratulate Dr. Gordon Chiu on his appointment as President and Chief Technology Officer of Grafoid Inc.
Dr. Chiu’s profound understanding of graphene’s powerful impact on the material sciences and in time, on humanity, leave Grafoid and its shareholders well-positioned to reap the benefits that come from an individual determined to reshape the world – and commerce – as we know it.
As Dr. Chiu expands Grafoid’s scientific accomplishments on a nation-to-nation basis, my role as Chief Executive Officer becomes more focused on managing our burgeoning business enterprises, expanding awareness of the MesoGraf™ brand and creating the financial foundations that lead to sustainable investor returns.
Since our incorporation in September 2011, Grafoid has built a unique, vertically integrated global platform. As innovators, the strategic decisions we’ve made were purposeful in building-in both scientific and business waypoints along our glide path to the future.
Key among those waypoints was our announcement on April 8, 2014 of the appointment of Mr. Thomas Cruikshank, former Chairman and CEO of the Halliburton Company, as strategic advisor to Grafoid. The U.S. market is critical to Grafoid’s global growth and future prosperity and we are very fortunate indeed to be able to welcome Mr. Cruikshank to the Grafoid team.
Mr. Cruikshank’s business acumen, coupled with his extensive global corporate experience as the leader of a Fortune 200 corporation affords Grafoid a competitive edge as we advance our near-market-ready MesoGraf™ applications.
In late 2013, Grafoid raised over USD $10m in private placement funding at $0.50/share. In the coming weeks, Grafoid will launch a further private placement round in order to provide the capital needed to support our materials development and production and our corporate development agenda through 2014-2015.
A new, $50m private placement round is priced at USD $5.00/share, a reflection of our rising value in the global marketplace as demonstrated by the growth in our technology enterprises as outlined below.
We see 2014 as a breakout year for Grafoid, our partners and our shareholders.
Towards Commercial Markets
Innovation Park
As we advance towards our commercialization goals, we are pleased to announce that our Innovation Park industrial facility location in Kingston, Ontario and host to Graphite Zero Pte Ltd., our MesoGraf™ R&D and production company is now operational.
As the largest producer of high-purity few layer graphene in the world today with facilities in Singapore and Kingston, Ontario, our MesoGraf™ production facility in New Jersey, is expected to be operational by the third quarter of this year.
Innovation Park is our graphene science and technology development hub and a future multi-disciplinary nanomaterials engineering center for both commercial products and materials testing.
Grafoid is fortunate to have secured the participation of some of the most highly respected material development scientists in the world to our Kingston facility. In time, we anticipate the material development world coming to us to test and prove their inventions.
Innovation Park is important because of its physical capacity and supporting infrastructure to meet the industrial-scale production needs of our growing list of global joint venture partners.
It is also home to those MesoGraf™-related development companies that we have created to succeed in specific sectoral markets. Some of those new enterprises are outlined below.
Mitsui & Co. Ltd
On March 25, 2014, Grafoid announced its two-year market development agreement with Mitsui & Co. Ltd., one of Japan’s – and East Asia’s – most influential corporations.
Not only does this partnering agreement provide us with access to a highly developed technology industrial market, Mitsui has opened the door for Grafoid to partner with a number of Japanese universities engaged in graphene R&D and application development on behalf of Japan’s industrial sector.
Mitsui & Co. Ltd., with assets of more than US $105 billion and more than 45,000 employees, is one of the world’s most diversified, comprehensive trading, investment and service companies. With headquarters in Tokyo, Mitsui maintains a global network of 146 offices in 66 countries in addition to some 320 subsidiaries and associated companies worldwide.
We see our relationship with Mitsui as a huge step for us competitively as we expand our businesses into key industrialized technology markets.
Additive Materials, 3D Printing and Altamat Inc.
On April 3, 2014, Grafoid Inc. announced the signing of an agreement with Altamat Inc. for the construction of an atomization facility to produce MesoGraf™ graphene-based powders and for 3D printing.
The agreement was signed with Altamat’s founder, Dr. Hani Henein, a renowned researcher, inventor and Professor of Material Engineering at the University of Alberta. Altamat develops innovative, cost-effective, environmentally sustainable manufacturing processes.
The agreement is doubly important as it provides Grafoid with the exclusive global rights to apply technologies invented by Dr. Henein for use in a wide range of functionalized powders for 3D printing applications.
The timing of the agreement coincides with Grafoid’s research and development launch of MesoGraf™ 3D printing powders and related materials at Innovation Park.
The market for 3D print materials and related equipment currently stands at approximately $1.5 billion per year. According to IDTechEx, this market will expand to approximately $4 billion over the next 10 years.
As the medical, automotive and aerospace sectors slowly adopt and adapt 3D printing applications to their specific needs, Grafoid aims to overcome the single largest barrier to acceptance – cost.
The economic scalability of our MesoGraf™ graphene materials provides us with an extraordinary competitive advantage.
Amphioxide™ and Althean Inc.
Perhaps one of the most important developments in graphene’s short existence according to Dr. Chiu is his patent-pending creation of Amphioxide™ – a dispersible, scalable, affordable graphene material derived from MesoGraf™.
Althean Inc. has licensed their production process to Grafoid for the production of Amphioxide™, a functionalized form of MesoGraf™, and joins the MesoGraf™ platform of companies to develop markets and secure joint venture partnerships from application developments, and, to expand Grafoid’s footprint in new and existing markets.
Amphioxide™ has led to the development high surface area (HSA) graphene films for thermal shielding applications or impermeable coatings for marine and aerospace applications; HSA foam for water purification and oil-spill-related environmental remediation; a carbon catalyst material, and; a key material for medical therapies used with antibodies for the eradication of a range of human cancers.
Innovation Park is now host to the world’s first mass production lines of Althean’s Amphioxide™ and related materials including MesoGraf™Xide1 (catalyst) and MesoGraf™Xide2 (antibodies).
U.S. Technology Acquisitions
As Grafoid continues its expansion into new markets, we wish to advise shareholders we are actively pursuing acquisitions in the United States.
A Launch Into the Graphene Sports Equipment and Protective Clothing Markets
Grafoid has launched a new business focused exclusively on the production of MesoGraf™ materials for use in sports equipment and for protective clothing worn by police, security officers and military personnel.
With a cumulative global market value for sports equipment and protective clothing estimated at more than $40 billion over the next five years, our aim is to introduce graphene materials to create lighter, stronger sports equipment; make protective clothing more comfortable yet stronger for users, and; ultimately, to reduce manufacturers’ input costs.
We anticipate the release of a formal announcement in the not-too-distant future.
In summary, Grafoid is nearing the crossover to commercializing some of its previously announced near-market-ready application developments.
We are currently in joint venture partnership discussions with some of the world’s largest multinational corporations engaged in battery technologies, automotive, aerospace and material science. We shall publicize those relationships upon signing of final agreements.
Sincerely,
Gary Economo
Chief Executive Officer and Founding Partner
Grafoid’s 2014 Graphene Conferences:
Graphene2014: Toulouse France, May 6-9
Nanobusiness Commercialization Association: Washington, D.C., May 6-7
Graphene Supply, Application & Commercialization 2014: Manchester, UK, June 12-13
Graphene World Summit: Berkley, CA, September 15-16