Haydale Graphene Industries plc (LON:HAYD) Chief Executive Officer Ray Gibbs caught up with DirectorsTalk for an exclusive interview to discuss their collaboration with Versarien plc (LON:VRS) and plans for further collaborations
Q1: We spoke to you recently about the collaboration with Talga Resources and you’ve just announced a collaboration with Versarien, how do the two companies compare?
A1: Very differently. Versarien uses graphitic material to make graphene nanoplatelets whereas Talga make their materials from the ground so they’re different materials, different outcomes and all can be applied to different applications so very different.
Q2: So why the need to work with two companies?
A2: I feel the need to work with anyone that’ll work with us and everyone seems to be happy to collaborate. The reason for that is I need a robust and varied supply chain for the applications which the customers want because not one material will do every job that you’re out there trying to solve.
Q3: Talga and Versarien seem to be in competition with each other so how do they feel about you working with both companies? Are they happy about it?
A3: Yes, I think they’re both content. They both have different materials, their routes to market are different and from our prospective, we’re looking for a robust supply chain. Both are young in terms of their evolution, they’ve still got to scale their processes up, they tell me they can do that, and we need to evaluate their materials. Versarien’s material we’ve seen and looks fine and they’re pushing themselves into the composites world and the composites business is a massive operation, it’s at $90 billion worth of revenue on an annual basis with a wide variety of applications. I’m keen with Versarien in particular to have a home-grown graphene based source and they are one of those so it’s great to collaborate with them, it’s good news.
Q4: So you’ve collaborated with Talga, you’ve collaborated with Versarien, anymore plans like this in the pipeline?
A4: I’ve always got stuff planned! Yes, there are a few things flying around. I’m looking set up that supply chain because when things take off, and we’ve already said we’ve got some really significant things happening in Korea now, we’ve been there a year and there’s 12 customers in various stages of sampling and evaluation so I need to have that supply chain in place. I’ve got a great support partner in AMG Mining, Versarien is another supplier and Talga too so yes, there will be others because every single persons or every single company’s materials is vastly different from the other one and that’s the difficulty that the buyer in the marketplace will face and that’s where we help.
