Eight-year-old actnano, a Cambridge-based startup behind safe nanocoatings for printed circuit boards, has pulled in $12 million in a Series A round.
The round was led by Emerald Technology Ventures, with Material Impact, Henkel Tech Ventures, GC Ventures America and Ireon Ventures participating.
“We not only survived a pandemic, whereas many companies of our size packed up shop, but we also closed a Series A round with the largest coating provider in the world: Henkel,” CEO Taymur Ahmad said. “We kind of pulled a rabbit out of a hat.”
actnano has created water- and environmental-resistant coating technology called Advanced nanoGuard. The coatings are designed to protect printed circuit boards, including connectors, antennas, LEDs and high heat-generating components. The hydrophobic technology conducts electricity through the coating, optimizing it for use in consumer electronics and automobiles.
The startup’s team signed a term sheet back in April, in the thick of the spring wave of coronavirus in the U.S. At that point, Ahmad’s advisors were still concerned that the investors would pull out, spooked by the reeling markets. Lawyers spoke to each other at length over Zoom. Some of actnano’s more powerful customers — Tesla and Ford, for example — called investors directly to endorse the startup.
Tesla and Ford are just a couple of actnano’s clients. The startup’s customers also include LG, Volvo, GM and Jaguar, Ahmad said.
“We do very well in automotive, and we want to expand in automotive. If you are in the auto world, you’ve got to be in Japan, Korea and Germany,” Ahmad said. “We have skeleton crews in each of those countries. We’re going to make sure they’re fully supported.”
Ahmad plans to nearly double actnano’s teams in China and Korea the help of the new funding. He also plans to establish a presence in Mexico, where the company does some business already, and enter the Japanese market in earnest in 2021.
Crucial to this global expansion plan is actnano’s home base in Cambridge. Ahmad founded actnano in 2012 in Chicago after yearslong careers at Alcoa and Philips. It was the talent pool in Greater Boston that led him to move the company to Cambridge. Here, Ahmad said, he can hire recent graduates from high-ranked universities like MIT, including multilingual employees who he can then send to work in emerging markets.
“We have the top minds in nanocoatings working for us,” Ahmad said. “I moved my family from Chicago to Boston because this is where the talent was. This is where the company thrives.”
