OCSiAl, the world’s largest manufacturer of graphene nanotubes, recently was added to the CB Insights Global Unicorn Club, a list of startup companies valued at $1 billion or more. OCSiAl made the list after A&NN Investments acquired a 0.5% stake in the company for $5 million.
OCSiAl was the first company to produce high-quality graphene nanotubes on an industrial scale. When it entered the market in 2014, OCSiAl offered graphene nanotubes to consumers at a price that was 75 times lower than those on the market, thereby making nanotubes accessible to a much larger number of industries. OCSiAl’s revenues have been doubling annually ever since, and the company expects to go public by 2025.
“We are confident that the value of OCSiAl will steadily grow in the long term, so we are thinking of increasing our share in the company,” said Rafael Abramyan, Investment Director at A&NN Group.
“By industry standards, graphene nanotubes are a relatively new material. Today we are observing the emergence of markets for its application,” said Yuriy Koropachinskiy, President of OCSiAl. “What is important is that these include not only the high-tech sector, but also mass-produced goods. We believe the company will be worth at least $100 billion in ten years’ time.”
Today, OCSiAl’s annual production capacity is enough to improve hundreds of thousands of tonnes of various materials. The company is rapidly increasing its output and plans to launch the first train of the world’s largest graphene nanotube synthesis plant in Luxembourg, its international headquarters, in 2022. OCSiAl’s customers include global car manufacturers, leading electronics companies, and major chemical producers.
Graphene nanotubes can drastically improve the properties of well-known materials, even when introduced in amounts as small as tenths or even hundredths of a percent. Ultra-strong, conductive nanotubes are now widely used in the aerospace, automotive, construction, mining, electronics and transport industries. There are considerable benefits related to energy efficiency and the reduction of CO 2 emissions. For example, graphene nanotubes are expected to help improve the efficiency of electric vehicles by as much as 60%. OCSiAl is among the 3% of companies on the unicorn list that focus on green technologies.
Nanotubes enable energy costs to be reduced at all stages of the product life cycle by reducing the amount of resources required for production, reducing the weight and quantity of the materials used, decreasing energy consumption during operation and disposal, and increasing the products’ lifespan.