Jay Sachetti joined Jeff O’Brien, partner at Husch Blackwell and Dyanne Ross-Hanson, president of Exit Planning Strategies talked about the market for mergers and acquisitions, exit planning opportunities for companies that don’t end up for sale and how companies can maximize their eventual sale price during an early October panel at the first Upsize on Tap event at Summit Brewing Co. in St. Paul.
When the state Legislature passed a law requiring employers to provide paid leave and safe time for employees, Justin Bieganek started hearing differing details from friends, colleagues and peers.
Eighteen years have passed for SAGE Electrochromics, the Faribault company that makes smart window products that save energy but don’t require blinds or shades.
Chairman and CEO John Van Dine used mostly government contracts to raise more than $50 million over those years, for a research and development phase, then a pilot phase, then full manufacturing starting about three years ago.
Now he’s expecting to double the company’s size in the next 18 months, growing from about $4 million in annual revenue to about $10 million next year. He?ll use $16 million in Series B financing, closed in July, from three investors. Another $13 million is committed.
“SAGE is now poised for quite rapid growth,” he says. “There?’ not another provider of this technology today.”
Van Dine met folks at lead investor Good Energies (www.goodenergies.com), based in Switzerland, when he presented at a conference.
A second investor, Applied Ventures LLC (www.appliedventures.com), a subsidiary of Applied Materials Inc., invests in early stage companies with high growth potential, and they contacted Sage, he says.
Bekaert (www.bekaert.com), a Belgium company, is the third investor, and had already provided funds to SAGE.
Van Dine says growing global interest in clean technologies helped attract investor attention, even though his company has been operating in the arena for years. “I could not have imagined it like the way it was,” he says, referring to heightened interest this year.
The product is based on materials science, similar to fiber optics, Van Dine says. “Those technologies take very long to develop. It’s a long haul and you need to understand that.”
He pursued government contracts, with the Department of Energy, Defense, and others, which also helped the company erect very large barriers to entry, in the form of know-how, trade secrets, patents, etc. Those are the benefits, of pursuing government contracts for funding, but it’s a long haul.
Our focus now is to rapidly leverage the new investment by the three firms.
John Van Dine, SAGE Electrochromics Inc.: 507.331.4848; in**@*****ec.com; www.sage-ec.com
