Money Moves: Baltimore Nanotech Firm Pixelligent Raised a Sparkly New $38M
Pixelligent, a nanotechnology firm that produces materials used in augmented reality displays and sensors, recently raised $38 million in IP-backed financing from a funding vehicle by MVolution Partners LLC. These funds brings the total raised this round of funding to $45 million, with the other $7 million coming from existing investors.
The company is known for the PixClearProcess, which synthesizes materials at the nano-level, as opposed to breaking down larger materials into nano-sized materials. It manufactures all of its materials in Baltimore and has 25 tons of capacity. Current CEO Craig Bandes took control of the company in 2009 as the chief restructuring officer appointed by a bankruptcy judge. In that time, Pixelligent raised $100 million to get to its current place in the market.
Bandes accredited the new funds raised to its PixClearProcess, nearly 90 patents, and “dozens”of trade secrets.
“The funding will help us support our customers as we bring numerous mass-production applications to market in 2023 and beyond,” he said in a statement.
IP-backed financing is a relatively new funding structure that Bandes has seen used only starting within the last 18 months or so, and by larger companies with significant knowhow and intellectual property. The loans process was facilitated by Aon, which had an expert team that valued Pixelligent’s IP portfolio and brought in MVolution Partners as the provider of funds, Bandes told Technical.ly.
“Innovation is a critical ingredient for the growth economy, but intellectual property is its foundation,” said Lewis Lee, CEO of Aon’s Intellectual Property Solutions, in a statement. “Aon is working with IP-rich companies like Pixelligent to help leverage the value of their intangible assets.”
In September, Holabird Business Park-based Pixelligent also received a $1.9 million grant from the US Department of Energy to support commercialization of its lubricant nanotechnology.
“Thankfully, we raised enough that we don’t need to think about fundraising for the foreseeable future,” Bandes told Technical.ly.
Read the original article on Baltimore Fishbowl.