A substantial distribution agreement boosted Israeli nanotechnology company Dotz Nano (ASX: DTZ) by 19% on the Australian Stock Exchange yesterday, but today its share price retreated 11%. Dotz Nano produces and sells nanomaterial Graphene Quantum Dots, which has various industrial uses.
The company has a market cap of A$27 million on the Australian Securities Exchange (about NIS 74 million). On Monday, it reported a distribution agreement in China worth $15 million over three years. The agreement is with the China Israel (hengqin) Science Technology Innovation Center (CisticPoly), a joint venture between Israeli and Chinese entrepreneurs, and part of the China Poly group owned by the Chinese government.
"Dotz Nano deals in semiconductor materials, also known as nano materials," explains co-founder and CEO Moti Gross. "Our material is based on technology purchased from Rice University in Texas, and invented by Prof. James Tour. Our product has an interesting property: when exposed to UV light, it returns the energy in color, and the color changes in accordance with the size of the quantum dots - dark purple, red, blue, green, and so on. The most common use for the material is in televisions, and for bio-imaging. Organic materials such as ours are an alternative for marking liquids and identification of forgeries."
Gross says that his company has already worked with various entities in China, but that it chose CisticPoly signed an exclusive agreement with it. "They will introduce us to major companies in China," he says. One such company is Sinofaith, which provides IP protection services. "China is a giant market, and it is also undergoing all kinds of changes. They no longer say 'Made in China' but 'Made by China' - they want to get away from imitation and make their industry more innovative and serious," says Gross. "As soon as our material is integrated into a product as a marker, that product bears the customer's unique signature, showing unequivocally that it is genuine. If the market does not appear, it means that the product is a forgery."
Gross says that the material can be used in textiles, and in food products like wine and olive oil, because it is non-toxic. Dotz Nano is working on obtaining FDA (US Food and Drug Administration) approval for the material.
What's the next stage after the signing of the agreement?
Gross: "With this agreement we start work on marketing in China, meetings with many Chinese companies, and that of course becomes part of business development and development of applications."
Dotz Nano became a public company when it was merged into a stock exchange shell company and raised money in late 2016, since when its share price has declined by 44%.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on January 10, 2018
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