Xolve, a Middleton, WI-based nanotechnology startup, has raised $1.8 million in an equity funding round that could reach nearly $2.8 million when it closes, according to a new SEC filing.
Xolve CEO Joe Beatty didn’t respond to messages seeking comment today.
At least some of the new money appears to come from returning investors, as the document lists officials with prior backers Peak Ridge Capital, Royal DSM, and New Capital Fund, based near Appleton, WI. Xolve has raised at least $4.7 million from investors, SEC documents show.
Xolve says its technology can be used to create better-performing nanomaterials, like graphene, at lower costs. This has applications in energy storage products and for making high-end plastics used by automakers, for example.
The company was founded in 2007 as Graphene Solutions to commercialize discoveries made by James Hamilton, a University of Wisconsin-Platteville chemistry and engineering physics professor, and his then-teenage student Philip Streich, who died in 2012. They invented a way to dissolve nanoparticles in stable solutions, solving the problematic tendency of these particles to aggregate in clumps, the company says—and thereby unlocking their potential to be used to make incredibly thin, strong materials.
Beatty took over the company in November 2013, succeeding John Biondi. Biondi was later named director of University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Discovery to Product initiative intended to boost university spinouts. Beatty has spent much of his career in the specialty chemicals industry, including stints with ColorMatrix, MetoKote, and Hexion Specialty Chemicals.
