A lot has happened since I last wrote about what’s going on with Uniqarta. We’ve hit a few significant technology milestones, established a variety of new strategic relationships, and have progressed with our fundraising.
Technology Milestones
Last November we implemented our ultra-thin chip assembly process on an industry-standard automated production line. This was done in collaboration with Mühlbauer Group, a German company that supplies much of the RFID industry with inlay manufacturing equipment. For the first time, we demonstrated our process’s capability to fabricate ultra-thin RFID inlays in an automated, volume-production fashion rather than one-by-one in our lab. This now sets the stage for establishing a volume production capability for our products.
The second milestone was the fabrication of functional RFID inlays on a paper substrate. Previous to this, we (and pretty much the entire industry), fabricated inlays on a plastic substrate. Making a high-performance, low-cost RFID inlay on paper is surprisingly challenging. Nevertheless, after evaluating a variety of options, we successfully fabricated ultra-thin all-paper inlays which we subsequently sampled to a variety of potential customers.
Strategic Relationships
The increased focus I put into developing new strategic relationships starting last December has been effective. I have reached out to a collection of new paper companies, incumbent RFID inlay/tag manufacturers, and end customers and have seen strong interest universally. These relationships are still at an early stage so it remains to be seen which mature and what form they take. Some may lead to supplier/customer relationships, some may involve technology licensing, some may involve strategic investment, and some will likely just dissolve for one reason or another. At this point I am just exploring the market and developing options that will allow us to better define our business model and go-to-market strategy later this year.
Fund Raising
Everything I’ve read and been told about the difficulty of raising money is correct! I had planned to close our seed round by now with a raise of $0.5 to $1.0 million. I have raised a portion of this amount but still require more. Several individual investors who I thought would invest have backed out.
I am finding the going tough with institutional investors (angels and VCs) as I am competing with software/mobility/social media startups that are more in fashion, promise a faster financial return, and whose technologies and marketplaces are better understood. There is not too much money being invested in hardware companies let alone ones such as Uniqarta that are developing new manufacturing processes. But I remain optimistic in what we are doing and that between the institutional and strategic investors with whom I am engaged we’ll succeed in raising what we need.
We also are pursuing government money. Last November we submitted a National Science Foundation SBIR proposal seeking $150K to be awarded this summer. We are also participating on a team putting together a proposal for a $75 million, five-year award for a Flexible Hybrid Electronics Manufacturing Innovation Institute. This institute will bring together industry, academic, and government parties to establish a complete innovation “ecosystem” addressing flexible hybrid electronics. Uniqarta’s ultra-thin chip assembly technology fits directly within the scope of this institute.
Bottom Line
Our technology development continues to run ahead of our business development and fundraising but the gap has narrowed. We are now in a position to provide functional prototypes in volume. This makes our business development efforts more effective and can move us into some customer evaluation projects. Those, in turn, could lead to initial orders. The key now is to get our manufacturing capability established (it will be outsourced initially) and to make sure we have enough money to reach a revenue position.