Dotz Nano Limited (ASX:DTZ) CEO Sharon Malka discusses recent acquisitions and collaborations, changes to the board, the recent capital raising and possible grants.Paul Sanger: I am Paul Sanger for the Finance News Network. And today I'm talking with Dotz Nano Limited, ASX Code DTZ, and they have a market cap of around 80 million. Dotz Nano is a leading developer of innovative climate and industrial Nano technologies. We welcome Dotz CEO Sharon Malka. Sharon, welcome to the network.
Sharon Malka: Well thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be here.
Paul Sanger: Now Sharon, I'm ready to kick things off. I know you made an announcement to the market back in October. Obviously you're based in Israel, and obviously I think the world knows that there's a lot going on in Israel at the moment. Question is, how's the company doing? How's the families doing? How are the staff doing? And how are you managing to operate in the current environment?
Sharon Malka: So first thank you for the question. On a personal level, we are all safe, on a country level, we are struggling with the situation, but like always like our history, we will come stronger and better. As to the company specifically, we do have in place business continuity plans. We do have procedures in place enabling us to continue operation without effect and without any impact from this situation on our development plan.
Paul Sanger: That's great to hear. Now let's talk a bit about the company. You recently completed the acquisition of a carbon capture technology. How important is this acquisition for the business going forward?
Sharon Malka: It's very important, because this was a strategic acquisition of this technology, of this asset, of a carbon capture technology, which was sourced from Rice University. And giving the scale of opportunity of this acquisition, giving the traction we get for this technology in the carbon capture. We pivot our strategic focus towards this activity, and we are currently focusing our attention on developing this technology in order to progress it, and get it into the commercial stage.
Paul Sanger: And you also recently finalised a strategic collaboration with SINTEF -- I hope I pronounced that right -- to develop carbon catch technology. Who is SINTEF, and how will they help in developing the technology going forward?
Sharon Malka: So SINTEF is the largest CRO for climate technology in Europe and some said globally. And they're focusing on climate technology, specifically on the carbon capture industry. And this provide us with the ability to leverage their knowledge, their expertise in carbon capture technology in order to progress and advance our technology. This is a strategical elaboration from our end, enabling us to join forces and have SINTEF on our development plan, in order to develop and optimize our carbon-based technology and progress it to the next steps of development.
Paul Sanger: And what is the status of discussions with potential customers for the technology, and what sectors do these customers typically come from?
Sharon Malka: Yeah, so I'll start with the second part, which is the target ends. And the target ends are the highly industry emitters, or the hard to EBIT industries, including the cement industries, the steel industry and power generation. So those are the key targets for us. We are in discussion, initial discussion with several key playing market players in this industry, to form a strategic collaboration because this is part of our strategy, to form strategic partnership with industrial emitter in order and aiming us to get to a pilot lab scale unit, to provide a validation of our technology in real life.
Paul Sanger: And you recently made some changes to the board. Why have they made these changes, and can you tell us a bit more about the new appointments?
Sharon Malka: Yeah, so the main changes of this board is add-on to the board industry expert. And as a result of following the acquisition of this technology. So on one hand we have the development plan, and we hit the first milestones with the collaboration with SINTEF you mentioned before. On the other hand, we want to enhance our expertise. And we just recently added two board members, both are industry expert within the climate technologies, within the carbon capture. One from Canada, Glenn Kelly, and the other one from Australia, Mitch Board. Both of them will provide us with their added value, with their knowledge, with their expertise to drive growth moving forward.
Paul Sanger: Fantastic. And you recently completed the capital raising, are you now in a comfortable... the balance sheet is in a position to fund the company's plans in the short term?
Sharon Malka: As a CEO, I'm never happy with what I have, and I'm looking forward for additional capital moving forward. But that being said, we have several sources for funding the development program going forward. The first one of course is the non-diluted funding by utilising grants, funding programs provided by different governments worldwide. The second one is a collaboration agreement, which will be entitled with or association with a license agreement with upfront payment, milestone payment, and cost sharing of development costs. And of course the last one will be utilizing our public vehicle.
Paul Sanger: And tell me, the grants you talk about, are they grants that you can access within Israel, Europe, or the US, or a combination of all three?
Sharon Malka: Combination of all three. What we are doing is we are trying to maximise the potential of those programs. And those programs are for the first stage of the development, and thereafter for the deployment of such technology. For the deployment, you need a joint venture with an industrial emitter. And we do it on a geographical level in Australia, we work with Australian industrial emitters. In Israel, we work with Israel's industrial emitter, and same within the US.
Paul Sanger: Sharon Malka. Many thanks for your time today.
Sharon Malka: Thank you very much. It was my pleasure.
Paul Sanger: Thank you.
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