03.16.10
BASF Venture Capital GmbH is investing in Quantiam Technologies Inc., Edmonton, Canada. The company develops and markets functional coatings for extreme operating environments such as petrochemicals industry applications. The heat-resistant products help prevent erosion and corrosion and are based on novel coatings, surfaces and catalysts. Quantiam has emerged from the current investment round with approximately €4 million, with BASF Venture Capital contributing roughly €2 million. The second investor is Ursataur Capital Management L.P., a private investment fund with its head offices in Toronto, Canada, which contributed the same amount. Quantiam will use the additional capital to fund further growth. Plans include an expansion of a production plant to enable its capacity to be put to commercial use. A major focus of the investment will be catalytic surface coatings, in particular for steam cracker furnace tubes, known as catalyzed-assisted manufacture of olefins, or CAMOL. Applied on internal surfaces, the coatings reduce carbon formation and hence cut maintenance times, energy expenditure and CO2 emissions.