BASF Venture Capital invests in Sweden’s Applied Nano Surfaces

BASF Venture Capital GmbH, a wholly owned subsidiary of BASF New Business GmbH, based in Ludwigshafen, Germany, is leading an investment round in the Swedish high-tech company Applied Nano Surfaces Sweden AB (ANS), headquartered in Uppsala. Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed.

ANS offers unique surface treatment technologies to reduce friction and wear in industrial and automotive applications. The investment is co-led by the existing investor Fouriertransform AB.

“ANS has advanced its proprietary surface treatment technologies to meet the market demand for low-cost, high-performance friction and wear reduction technologies,” said Markus Solibieda, managing director at BASF Venture Capital. “This is confirmed by the impressive list of applications under development with key customers. We are confident that ANS’s management will translate this into significant value for its shareholders.”

ANS will use the investment proceeds to put its ongoing customer projects into high-volume series production, initially in automotive applications such as valve train components, cylinder liners and connecting rods. In addition, the funds will be used to further expand business development activities in other industrial application areas as well, such as hydraulic motors, rock drills, pumps, chains, gears and compressors, where friction and wear are highly relevant topics.

“This financing through BASF Venture Capital allows us to mature our customer projects to high-volume serial production applications,” said Christian Kolar, CEO and co-founder of ANS. “The demand for solutions to improve energy efficiency is strong not only in the automotive sector, but increasingly also in industrial applications. Once we have established production for key applications, we will be able to expand and fully exploit the great potential with our highly scalable processes.”

“ANS has developed friction reduction technologies with a very favorable cost-performance profile,” said Michael Nettersheim, investment manager at BASF Venture Capital. “Ease of implementation should support broad market adoption. Currently, late-stage tests at well-known OEMs from the automotive industry are underway. We expect that the exciting results from prior tests will be validated.”