Neah Power Systems Inc. - NPWZ
Neah Power Systems Inc. - NPWZ
NPWZ Neah Power was founded in 1999, but CTO/founder Leroy Ohlsen had been thinking about alternative energy for years.
Inspired by a Discovery Channel science program on fuel cells and their potential, Leroy began to read and absorb the history and the science of fuel cells. Upon completing his chemistry degree from the University of Washington, he decided, along with fellow founder Michael Fabian, to start a company to pursue his dream of a “superior, longer-lasting energy source.”
NPWZ Neah Power has grown to include a world-class engineering and scientific team from around the world. Prototype development continues and the company expects to make its energy products commercially available in 2012.
NPWZ Neah Power Systems is a publicly-held company. Original venture investors include Frazier Technology Ventures, Alta Partners, Intel Capital, Castile Ventures and WestAM.
Neah Power Systems Inc.(NPWZ) is developing long-lasting, efficient and safe power solutions for portable electronic devices, including notebook PCs, military radios and other power-hungry computer, entertainment, and communications products.
NPWZ Neah Power Systems uses a patented, silicon-based design for its micro fuel cells that enable higher power densities to enable lighter-weight, smaller form-factors and lower costs.
This silicon-based architecture lets Neah Power use a componentized design so that a fuel cell can be tailored to meet each customer's needs, varying the components to achieve required power, size, and operating duration.
This exceptional flexibility and NPWZ Neah's ability to leverage the silicon industry's manufacturing technology set Neah Power apart.
NPWZ MARKETS
Military
It is difficult to fathom a more demanding power user than the military. Modern, effective soldiers have come to rely on increasingly sophisticated computational and communications gear. In fact, it’s been said that there are two limiting factors determining the length of mission: water and batteries.
The amount of water and batteries a soldier can physically carry often defines the duration of a mission and the likelihood of success.
These military devices require a dependable, lightweight, compact power source to extend operational runtimes. On top of this, the electronic equipment and power sources need to be able to perform reliably under harsh operating conditions in the field.
NPWZ Neah Power’s patented silicon-based fuel cell is expected to address these fundamental issues and provide a superior power source for all sorts of military applications. The Neah Power fuel cell is expected to provide two to three times the energy capacity versus the standard BA-5590 battery, while remaining in the same compact form.
Instant “Recharge” for Continuous Computing
Importantly, soldiers can benefit from the ability to continuously run their electronic equipment without the need to wait for recharging. Fuel cells can produce power as long as a fuel source is provided. When one fuel cartridge is exhausted, a soldier could simply pop it out and insert another one to continue the power supply. Instead of carrying multiple batteries, soldiers would only need to carry only one fuel cell and several lightweight fuel cartridges for continuous power capability (see below).
The BA-5590 is the U.S. Military’s most widely used portable power source, supporting hundreds of communication and computational applications in the field. Though proven, these batteries are big and bulky, and weigh soldiers down. Instead of carrying multiple batteries for extended missions, dramatic weight and volume reductions are possible by carrying one fuel cell and multiple cartridges (see below). Greater reductions are possible with longer missions.
Fully Sealed System
Neah Power’s design can be configured as an open air system (for greater runtime capacity) or as a fully-sealed system (for predictable operation under a wide variety of field conditions).
Both configurations capture the reaction by-products inside the fuel cartridge.
The open-air system requires exposure to air for its oxygen source, while the fully-sealed system contains a liquid oxidant right along with methanol fuel in the cartridge.
Mobile Life
Business travelers and mobile professionals have benefited greatly from the portability and freedom enabled by ever-improving notebook PCs. Productivity has soared during the first phase of mobile computing, enabling users to complete self-contained computing tasks, such as spreadsheets, document creation, and batch email. These tasks were primarily conducted in a disconnected or intermittingly-connected state.
The current phase of mobile computing might be described as the “connected” state. Connection to private networks and the public Internet has become more pervasive in recent years, thanks to “Wi-Fi” hotspots that seamlessly link to robust WAN networks. In addition to self-contained computing tasks, business travelers and mobile professionals are increasingly conducting network-centric computing, such as ERP order entry and status, inventory checks, pricing checks, as well as real-time email and connection to the Web and Web services like Google.
Corridor Warriors
Importantly, persistent computing capability will not be limited to travel or time out of the office, but within the office as well. More and more companies are outfitting their corporate campuses and work environments with secure Wi-Fi networks enabling knowledge workers to carry their PCs with them throughout the workday. Users will no longer be tethered to their desks, freeing them to access information and communicate whenever and wherever they are located.
Persistent Computing Requires Extended Power
Wireless networking technologies like Wi-Fi have triggered a significant demand for power. We believe that users demand a convenient and longer-lasting power source to keep up with their work pace.
Today’s dominant technology for laptop PCs—lithium-ion batteries—has not been able provide the energy for all-day computing capability. Equally important, many experts believe that lithium-ion technology is mature and is not expected to provide significant performance improvements in the years to come.
This challenge is widely recognized, with companies like Intel spearheading an Extended Life Working Group to address the issues.
First Responders
First responders need reliable and long-lasting communications, sensors, and other portable electronics devices. Police, fire, and other first responder personnel often have to operate in environments where power is unavailable for long period of time. Their reliance on communications and related devices is absolute and often a matter of life or death.
These devices require a dependable, lightweight, compact power source to extend operational runtimes. In addition, the electronic equipment and power sources need to be able to perform reliably under harsh operating conditions in the field.
NPWZ Neah Power’s patented silicon-based fuel cell is expected to address these fundamental issues and provide a superior power source for all sorts of first responder applications.
Instant “Recharge” for Continuous Computing
Importantly, first responders can benefit from the ability to continuously run their electronic equipment without the need to wait for recharging. Fuel cells can produce power as long as a fuel source is provided.
When one fuel cartridge is exhausted, a first responder could simply pop it out and insert another one to continue the power supply. Instead of carrying multiple batteries or finding a way to recharge their batteries, first responders would only need to carry only one fuel cell and several lightweight fuel cartridges for continuous power capability.
Logistics
Information Drives Speed, Value, and Service
Logistics is an information-intensive industry and function. Technology is used to increase inventory turns and deliver goods where and when they are needed. Logistics workers—including warehouse personnel, drivers, rental car employees, even ski lift operators—have been able to increase productivity and speed service with mobile tracking devices connected to information networks.
Power That Lasts the Entire Shift
All too often, however, the batteries in these mobile tracking devices run out before a shift is completed. Elaborate “recharging stations” are often set up to ensure that a fresh supply of batteries is readily available. Besides the inconvenience, these solutions consume time, space, and capital.
Users are demanding power solutions that can work as hard as they do — up to 12-hour shifts in many cases. This is not possible with current rechargeable battery technology, such as lithium-ion or nickel-metal hydride. Further, users are always looking for smaller and lighter form-factors for their mobile products to ease ergonomic demands.
Silicon-Based Design Enables Long Life and Small Sizes
Neah Power’s patented design is expected to enable higher efficiencies and power densities, which translates into extended runtimes and smaller, lighter packages compared to a traditional PEM-based fuel cells.
Instant “Recharge” for Continuous Operation
Importantly, logistics workers can benefit from the ability to continuously run their mobile electronic equipment without the need to wait for recharging. Fuel cells can produce power as long as a fuel source is provided.
When one fuel cartridge is exhausted, a worker could simply pop it out and insert another one to continue the power supply. Finally Neah Power’s fuel cell captures the water vapor reaction by-product inside the fuel cartridge itself.
No worries about condensation and the potential adverse effects on sophisticated electronic gear. These cartridges are expected to be disposable or recyclable for convenience.
Investors
Neah Power Systems Inc. is a publicly-held technology development company. Original venture investors include:
Frazier Technology Ventures (FTV) is among the Frazier family of venture funds, which is the largest family of venture capital funds based in the Pacific Northwest with over $800 million under management. FTV was founded in late 2000 with an investment focus on seed and early stage technology investments in the Pacific Northwest. The FTV partners have a combined 70 years of operating experience with industry leaders such as Microsoft, Visio, AT&T, Real Networks and Immunex. Leveraging their operational, technical and domain skills, FTV’s mission is to partner with entrepreneurs to build innovative and sustainable businesses.
Alta Partners is a Bay Area venture capital firm with just under $1 billion under management. Alta invests in companies in the information technology and life sciences sector and provides financing, relationships and guidance to help build highly successful organizations. Alta Partners was founded in 1996 as a successor to Burr, Egan, Deleage & Co. (BEDCO), which invested more than $700 million in over 200 companies in the U.S. and overseas. Alta Partners builds on the BEDCO legacy combining capital and experience with exceptional entrepreneurial talent to achieve investing success.
Intel Capital, Intel’s strategic investment program, is one of the largest worldwide corporate venture programs investing in the technology segment. With an overall strategy to stimulate advances in computing and communications, the Intel Capital team seeks out and invests in promising companies worldwide working together to establish new and innovative technologies, develop industry standard solutions, drive Internet growth and advance the computing platform.
Castile Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm providing financial backing and strategy guidance to help exceptional entrepreneurs build successful businesses founded on fundamental innovations in technology. Distinguished by the deep business and technology experience of its partners, Castile often leads or co-leads investment syndicated and plays an active role in guiding and advising its portfolio companies.
WestAm is the global investment management arm of WestLB AG, Germany's fourth largest bank by assets. WestAM has investment management operations in the US, Europe, Japan and Australia. As of March 31, 2004, WestAM managed a total of $51 billion for more than 500 institutional clients around the world. The Private Equity Group of WestAM is based in Chicago with offices in New York and Los Angeles.
The Group manages nearly $3 billion in institutional commitments to private equity through discretionally managed portfolios of venture and buyouts partnership, and direct investment in underlying portfolio companies.
NPWZ Neah Power Systems Investor Presentation
Management
Dr. Chris D'Couto
President
Chief Executive Officer
Chris heads all of Neah's operations, including engineering, marketing, and business development.
He brings more than a decade in thin films processing and semiconductor technology expertise, proven track record in sales and marketing, and product introduction experience including serving as senior director of marketing at FormFactor Inc., where he headed the launch of full wafer probe cards for NAND flash and DRAM.
Before FormFactor, Chris had a nine-year tenure at Novellus Systems, Inc., with positions of increasing responsibility ranging from productmanagement to technology development and sales. Some of his roles at Novellus Systems include the launch of some of the PVD products and an ALD system for tungsten deposition, Sales Account Management and core technology development. Prior to that, Chris had worked at Varian Associates and as a consultant to Intel Corporation.
He has a B.Tech. (Honors) in chemical engineering from the Coimbatore Institute of Technology in India, Ph.D. in chemical engineering from Clarkson University, NY., and an MBA from the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley.
Stephen Wilson
Chief Financial Officer
CPA, CMA
Mr. Wilson has 25+ years of experience in finance and accounting, most recently as CFO. Past employers include Coopers & Lybrand, Puget Sound Power and Light, Honeywell, Mutual Materials Company, Strategic Finance & Accounting Services and Impart Media Group, Inc.
Derek Reiman
Director of
Manufacturing
Mr. Reiman joined Neah Power Systems in 2001 upon completing his B.S. in Metallurgical Engineering, with a focus on semiconductor processing, from the University of Washington. He started initially as a Research Engineer on porous silicon process development, electrode current collection and catalysis.
During his tenure at Neah, Mr. Reiman has had roles of increasing responsibility. In his current role as Director of Manufacturing, Mr. Reiman is responsible for the silicon processing, production, cell and stack testing and quality control.
As part of Neah's outsourced manufacturing model, Mr. Reiman is working with the manufacturing partners to implement a reliable supply chain, manage costs, ensure high quality and on time delivery.
Awards
Popsci logo
2010 Best of What's NewTM
Office of Naval Research: Award: July 2007 & September 2008
MIT
Leroy Ohlsen: Top 100 Young Innovators: September 2004
Seattle Alliance of Angels: Startup of the Year: May 2004
Venture All-Stars: Top 25 Company: June 2005
Red Herring Top: 100 Innovators: December 2004
NIST/ATP: $2M Award: September 2003
RECENT HEADLINES
NPWZ LETTER TO SHAREHOLDERS
AUGUST 25, 2011
Quote:
I am pleased to write this letter to provide an update on Neah Power and share with you the many positive developments that have unfolded in 2011.
We believe that many of these developments can serve as the foundation for the Company's continued momentum into the Second Half of 2011 and we are proud of the these achievements.
Our objective for the Second Half of 2011 is to continue the effort toward licensing of our patented, silicon-based PowerChip MCMTM technology through the establishment of customer engagements. During the course of the year, we are seeing the benefits of previous execution around completing high volume capable prototype systems, customer engagements for products, as well as licensing revenue streams. We continue be excited about our opportunity to merge with Exigent Security Products, the radiation sensor company. Some other very eventful items that happened of 2011, that we believe will continue to evolve to the Company’s benefit are
A team from Neah, including myself, visited India in May to further develop and grow potential business opportunities. Over the course of the summer we continued to nurture and develop those relationships with a follow-uo visit to India in August where we demonstrated the applications of our technology.
As a recognized expert in fuel cell technology, I was invited to Japan for the Renewable Energy Expo 2011 to present Neah’s disruptive and patented technology to leading adopters of fuel cell technologies.
In August, we again visited Japan where we demonstrated our technology to parties interested in the technology.
We continue to have interest from previously announced customers, and we are in the process of renewing our various letters of intent.We continue to engender interest and early engagement from the leading edge fuel cell adopters in the defense, consumer, and transportation markets.
The leading US defense supplier has renewed their letter of interest, and we are progressing well in our discussions about the specific product applications.
The most recent award, the 2010 Best of What’s NewTM Popular Science, which is one of its most prestigious awards in technology, continues to generate interest among various potential customers.
The management has been continuously committed to working through the difficult economic times that we are experiencing as a nation, as well as a Company. To better align the management interest with that of the shareholder, a director involved with sales efforts for the Company is foregoing any cash compensation, and the officers of the Company are taking a 33% reduction in salary. In return, officers and one director and will be compensated in cash and equity on completion of bookings, and cash receipts, by the Company over the course of the next three years.
We are working diligently to ensure that calendar 2011 will be a year that marks the sustained launch of the Company in the market and will serve as the foundation of our future growth. The Company has over $38M invested from shareholders and previous investors like Intel Capital, Novellus Systems and other top tier venture capitalists. We believe we are now seeing the fruit of that effort, as evidenced by the various patents issued to the Company, awards and other recognition and customer interest for our products.
We have an exceptional team of people committed to bringing the PowerChip MCMTM product to market. As the CEO, I have experience launching successful products for a number of Fortune 500 Companies, and took a leadership role at Neah to complete the development of the technology, develop the manufacturing strategy, and deploy the product with innovators and market leaders. We have a committed team and a Board of Directors that diligently oversees the operations and execution of the Company, while also actively contributing to develop sales channels for Neah.
Neah’s superior performance with our PowerChip MCMTM technology, as compared to the incumbent PEM (Proton Exchange Membrane) technology includes longer lifetime, approximately 2½ times the power density (power per unit area), capital efficient manufacturing using existing computer chip manufacturing capacity, and a unique anaerobic (non-air) functionality. This unique anaerobic capability makes us an attractive solution for automobiles, trucks, two wheelers, forklifts, electric scooters, and defense applications.
As we move beyond the first half of our fiscal year 2011, we are actively packaging our technology and building a series of commercialized offerings in
· Licensing
· Product Development
· Prototype Development
· Engineering Support
We continue to focus our effort on growing the Company, deploying the PowerChip MCMTMtechnology through licensing and product sales, and maintaining our lean operation mode while we continue to advance
Neah Power Systems.
Thank you for your continued support of Neah Power and the Company’s management team.
Chris D’Couto PhD, MBA
President and CEO
Company Contact:
Stephen Wilson
Neah Power Systems
http://info@neahpower.com
425-424-3324
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Neah Receives an Additional US Patent for Non Air-Breathing Fuel Cells
Marketwire (Tue, Oct 11)
Quote:
NEAH Power Systems, Inc., (OTCBB: NPWZ) announced it has been issued another patent from the U. S. Patent and Trademark Office. The patent, titled "Liquid-liquid fuel cell systems having flow-through anodes and flow-by cathodes" (USPTO #7,968,248), further solidifies Neah's presence and leadership in alternative energy.
With this patent issuance, Neah has a total of twelve issued patents in the U.S. This patent relates to the unique anaerobic (non air-breathing) capability of the Neah fuel cell. This patent further covers Neah's proprietary architecture whereby a liquid fuel and a liquid oxidant run the fuel cell independent of the environment of operation.
Neah Power CEO, Dr. Chris D'Couto, stated, "This additional patent further solidifies our IP portfolio and demonstrates the underlying validity of our proprietary technology. We believe that our novel fuel cell technology enables us to offer differentiated and competitive products for a variety of possible applications that were previously considered unsuitable for fuel cells.
We believe this is why companies like The Boeing Company, the large US defense supplier we previously announced, and other parties are showing interest in our products."
More information about this patent, as well as our patent portfolio, can be downloaded directly from the USPTO website, located at http://patft.uspto.gov/
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Neah Discusses Recent Interest in Its Proprietary Fuel Cells
Marketwire (Thu, Oct 6)
Monday, October 3, 2011
Interview With The President And CEO; Neah Power Systems, Inc. (NPWZ)- Chris DCouto
http://www.twst.com/notes/articles/avj605.html
Wall Street Transcript (Mon, Oct 3)
Boeing Supports Neah Power Systems as a Fuel Cell Provider for Airplane and Ground Applications
Marketwire (Mon, Oct 3)
Quote:
Boeing Company is exploring areas of collaboration to deploy our patented, award-winning PowerChip™ technology to various distributed power sources on Boeing's current and future airplane and ground systems
finance.yahoo.com/q/h?s=NPWZ.OB+Headlines
NPWZ Contact Info
Neah Power Systems, Inc.
22118 20th Avenue SE
Suite 142
Bothell, WA 98021
Website: http://www.neahpower.com
Phone: 425-424-3324
Email: info@neahpower.com
facebook: http://www.facebook.com/NeahPower
twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/neahpowerinc
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