BASF VC Invests in Canadian Quantiam Technologies
BASF Venture Capital has announced an investment in Quantiam Technologies, located in 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 CC$6 million (€4.0 million), with BASF Venture Capital contributing CA$3 million. The second investor is Ursataur Capital Management, 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 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. Rationale: carbon deposits clog the tubes over time and act as insulators, necessitating higher process temperatures on a permanent basis.
