Delft-based Qlayers to raise €1M through NPEX stock exchange; eyes expansion

Delft-based Qlayers, a scale-up developing robotic solutions for coating large-scale industrial infrastructures such as storage tanks, wind turbine blades, and ships, announced on Friday, December 16, that it will raise €1M through the NPEX stock exchange.

Qlayers plans to issue five-year bonds and reward investors with an annual interest rate of 9 per cent. The entry fee for investment is €500, says the company. 

“After securing €1M, the issue will be closed after approximately five business days, after which the bonds will be allocated to investors who can trade these bonds on the NPEX platform,” says the company.

Fund utilisation   

The Dutch company plans to use the funds to develop its robotic technology further to make the industrial coating process more efficient, safe, and sustainable. 

The company has nine coating robots that paint surfaces automatically and sustainably, and is set to grow in 2023. 

The company will also use the funds to scale up its operation faster around the globe. 

Qlayers: What you need to know

Despite living in a digital age, several sectors, like industrial coating for maritime, rely heavily on manual labour to complete maintenance projects. 

However, the manual process is time-consuming and expensive, and puts workers and the environment at risk due to hazardous working conditions and overspray.

Here’s where Qlayer, with its robotic technology, enables coating contractors to overcome the limitations of manual coating and carry out maintenance projects more efficiently, quickly, and safely without any overspray. 

“What many people don’t know is that storage tanks, ships, and wind turbines are painted by hand. It can result in unsafe situations due to working at heights, and it is also time inefficient in case a roller is used. Manual spraying is much more time efficient but has one major drawback: overspray, leading to up to 50 per cent paint loss. Qlayers provides a solution for these problems. We develop, manufacture and supply robots with which we can automatically apply paint to industrial surfaces worldwide in a controlled and efficient manner with virtually no overspray,” says Josefien Groot, CEO of Qlayers. 

“The NPEX funding round will allow us to grow faster and expand the number of robots in the different regions where Qlayers is active,” she adds.