RE:RE:RE:Pyro HistoryFantastic post/history Hilbertk, many thanks for posting this. A very informative post.
Exciting times for PyroGenesis! Fantastic work by Peter and Team!
Long and Strong in PyroGenesis!
A fellow investor asked for a brief history of Pyro as they were new to the story. The question originated in relation to how strong is Pyro's patents. To answer it appropriately a quick history lesson is needed. This is just from memory so don't take it as 100% accurate and I have only followed Pyro for 3 years so I've pieced together some of it from old documents and interviews, as well as picking Peter's brain.
1990's
Peguisis Refractory was started in Montreal. A company focusing on plasma technology. One interview Peter stated that a mutual friend introduced him to Pyro as the company was having some financial difficulties. Peter being an investment banker in NY at the time knew his way around finance. Off the top of my head I believe he became a board member first but I could be wrong. If you search Peguisis Refractory you will see some documents. Peguisis became Pyro.
Also in the 90's NATO was looking for small spherical powders, this had to do with armour coating if my memory serves me correctly. In response to NATO's need, Pyro invents Plasma Atomization. Titanium wire is fed into the powder tower, it is introduced to plasma torches which melt the wire and creates very small spherical powders. It is ideal for reactive metals such as Titanium. At the time it wasn't economical for Pyro to produce the powder as NATO only need a little and medical and dental were too small to make a go of it. Pyro sold the patent to AP&C... who later went bankrupt. Arcam (Big Company) bought AP&C and consequently the patents and powder tower. (Side note Pyro works with NATO, DARPA, US NAVY, and unknown Government Department relating to undisclosed reactive metal powder. DARPS trust Pyro, their patents and their work. This cannot be understated)
2010's
In 2015 pyro had a deal with a company in China to sell them 12 ( It might have been 10 or 15, not sure from memory but around 12) powder towers. Around the same time General Electric bought Arcam. In addition to the Plasma Atomization technology Arcam had, they also had metal 3D printers. GE would have had the pick of a few printer manufacturers but they chose Arcam. It has been speculated that part of that reason was to lock up Plasma Atomization. The reason is that Plasma Atomization is the best quality of powder out there bar none. Aerospace needs that quality of powder. These companies are looking 10-20 years down the road and Additive manufacturing is the future for aerospace. If you need some proof look at Additive Manufacturing Aerospace Lightweighting on google. Dig deep and you will find how AM is able to make parts smaller and lighter which save airline companies big dollars in fuel costs. Another interesting point is that Rolls Royce, who competes with GE, was using Arcam printers. Why Arcam printers? Because of the Plasma Atomized powders. They have since moved to Renishaw printers, because they don't want to buy from GE. Plasma Atomization WAS an expensive way to create powder and it was primarily reserved for medical, dental and aerospace. More on this later. Side note... Mr. Massimo Dattilo at Pyro once worked at Pratt and Whitney. Pratt, GE and Rolls Royce are the three main jet engine manufacturers.
Now this is where it gets fun... The purchase of Arcam allowed Pyro to get back into selling powder and not just towers. Peter saw recurring revenue and not just one time sales. He pivoted and cancelled the deal in China. You will see where this was annouced on the chart. They then became a powder supplier. It was a transition and funds were raised to build two powder plants. Competing wasn't good enough though. The Pyro engineers went to work and came up with NexGen, which is 4x more economical than the old Plasma Atomization tech, You can bet someone at GE had some sleepless nights when Peter annouced that Pyro will be able to make and ship any type of metal powder to an end user, cheaper than they could manufacture it themselves on site. This is bolded because unless you follow Additive Manufacturing closely the weight of that statement would be lost. Plasma Atomization was expensive but this comment was not made of the cuff it was to let competitors know. Plasma Atomization being more economical than gas atomization or water atomization is HUGE, however, very few truly understand the true implications of this annoucement.
Argueably GE has access to any engineers they would like but they bought the Plasma Atomization tech, they didn't create it. This makes it very hard for them to improve or invent their own process. Instead they bought Arcam as that was cheaper than starting their own plasma R&D and creating their own plasma process. When you are GE big you aquire you don't invent. Peter often says that Pyro has the worlds greatest concentration of plasma expertise under one roof anywhere in the world. He places a caveat of "to his knowledg" there for legal reasons, but I can guarantee you will not find any company ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD with the expertise Pyro has when it comes to Plasma. Believe me and the longs who have been around remember my endless posts and links from the past. Thanks to Midtownguy for posting far better info.
So when you ask about patents and the moat they have around it. Its wide, very, very, wide. To the extent that if you stand at the edge of the moat you can't see the castle, all you get to see is the smoke rising from the fires which burn very hot. Peter and CTO Pierre Carabin have these 80 ish patents locked down tight. The patent protects it as well as the 30 years of R&D knowledge which you can't replicate overnight. If someone wants to compete Pyro would have markets nailed down before they even got off the ground. Its equivalent of someone starting a personal computer company in 2005 in order to compete with Gates and Jobs.
Additive Manufacturing is an industry I've watched for a long time. It fascinate me and what originally brought me to Pyro. Then I reasearched Drosrite which again is better than anything else out there and no one can compete without patent infringement and plasma expertise.
Originally Purevap and Nano Si were interesting but too early for me to get overly excited. Fast forward to now and OH MY GOSH. Pyro and HPQ are sitting on game changing tech for Additive Manufacturing, Dross Processing, Induration Torches, Nano Silicon and now tunnelling. Tunnelling is where AM was 5 years ago and Purevap was 3 years ago. Mark my words in the next decade Pyro will be the greatest Industrial Company to have ever come from Canada. Bold words but just you wait.....
HK