Can a nanomaterial change the world? Integrated Graphene certainly thinks so, and so do the firm’s investors – with their backing now funding a number of trailblazing innovations
Although Claus Marquordt is German-born and spent his first years following university in medical diagnostics there, he has spent most of his entrepreneurial life in Scotland, culminating in his current role as co-founder of Integrated Graphene.
Claus initially moved to Scotland 18 years ago to join Sterling Medical Innovation, but when it was sold on to a large diagnostic company in 2012, he began the journey that led to Integrated Graphene.
“Even though all the Sterling staff were made redundant, there were many spin-offs. We had all gained confidence and experience and a global network, ” he says.
Initially Claus teamed up with a Danish company, RD Support, and after a few months, hired Marco Caffio, an ex-colleague who became co-founder and CSO of Integrated Graphene.
“Marco has an academic background. At St Andrews he was researching Graphene, 2D materials and nanomaterials, but he was also industry honed, concerning design for manufacture.”
They looked at how transformational it could be to the health system to have a graphene sensor for human diagnostics that would allow the diagnostics to go from the lab to the home.
“When we first looked at any of the graphene manufacturing methods, it looked like we could not develop a lean Six Sigma low cost manufacturing process. After 12 years in industry, you realise it’s about volume manufacture at low cost.”
For about a year, they looked at the process, the challenge being that graphene is a single layer of carbon – a nanomaterial. You can’t see it, you can’t smell it, you can’t handle it.
In 2014 they incorporated the first company, branded RD Support. “At this point it was still self-funded,” says Claus. “The idea was still so far off that we thought no-one will give us any money for this. It was always important for us to stand on our own feet, and we did that until we got some SMART funding from Scottish Enterprise. That allowed us to start to develop and in 2016 we had a breakthrough.”
That year they won £100,000 pounds in the Scottish Higgs EDGE competition, meaning that a new company, RD Graphene could be incorporated and two researchers employed to look at how to make the product repeatable and characterise if it actually makes the product better.
“That’s what we were doing for the next two years until 2018 and we realised that we did have something very good. We knew it would take more investment, so we got engaged with a lot of local angel investors.
“There were investors from various backgrounds from medical diagnostics to energy to law and they have helped for a small stake in the company for the first institutional raise in 2019. It was a big round, of £3.1m, for having no real name and no customers. There was also an Innovate UK grant of more than £2m. At this point we were up to 19 people.
“With the first investment we were able to launch our first product. The material that we invented we called Gii, now trademarked around the world. The first product was Gii Sens – the biosensor. We have more than 75 customers worldwide and increasing sales numbers significantly, going into the tens of thousands. It is now the best biosensor material in the world.”
Integrated Graphene is sponsoring five PhDs at the moment. One at the UWS is looking at renewable energy generation with the material. “They’re doing fantastic work. It could mean battery-free devices and that’s very high in the list of desirables. The second market that we’re entering at the moment is energy storage.
“Everybody is looking at how they can make batteries last longer and be more sustainable and we have a solution to that.
“We have used the £12m investment so far to really build the infrastructure and commercialising to scale up manufacture in both markets. The goal was always clear for diagnostics and for energy storage. But now we have people in place we’re looking at what’s the third market, what’s the fourth market?”
With the momentum, Claus will be changing his role within the company as it appoints a new CEO.
“We will have an industry-hardened CEO who worked at Wilkie before, in advanced materials supply to the likes of Gore-Tex and took Wilkie to a £50m+ turnover. We have more than 50 people now and we need to expand. My skill is in scaling up manufacture, making sure that works with everything we’re doing in R&D and the future pipeline.”
How is Scotland faring as a place to expand? Claus says that like everywhere else, there are pros and cons.
“We had a lot of support from Scottish Enterprise at start up, but what is probably lacking is the scale-up. No-one is willing to write the next £50 million cheque. I think it’s true to say that manufacturing is not perveived as sexy by many. Maybe that’s not the right language, but I think everyone will understand.
“What people should understand is what we’re doing could prevent tens of millions of batteries from ending up in landfill. We have more than a dozen markets in our pipeline.”
Claus adds that having more successful companies in Scotland, making a significant amount of money, means it does get reinvested into the ecosystem.
“With a lot of entrepreneurs I know, they try for 10 years. Then they’re knackered and happy that someone buys it for 25 or 50 million. I think it’s a real pity that we don’t manage this quicker and then execute on a global scale, and continue to be here, unlike the Motorola or electronics companies who have the grants then leave.
“This is my home now and I would love to give something back, fostering the great initiatives that are happening. I think that are more people understanding what needs to change. I think we’re on a good track but for an entrepreneur it isn’t fast enough – nothing ever is.” n
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