David Slawson

Portland, OR (USA)
Role(s):
VP/SVP/Dept Head

Focal Technologies Inc.

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Location: Portland
Industry: Invention
Year Founded: 2009
Number Employees: 1-10 people
Business Stage: Growth (not profitable)
Entity Type: "C" Corporation
Description: Overview Focal Technologies, Inc. (FTI), is an innovative toxin remediation and environmental clean-up solutions company. FTI utilizes a patented invention that uses a large refracting lens to capture solar thermal and ultraviolet (UV) light energy to destroy complex organic effluents, pathogens, and various pollutants found in contaminated water, soils, and solids. Our equipment solutions concentrate this energy into a flow system that filters, oxygenates, and pumps effluents into a chamber where they are exposed to as much as 2000o F and 50,000 watts of UV energy. This process, known as photocatalytic breakdown, has been proven to destroy a variety of complex organic effluents and bacteria. We deploy this technology in our RayTM turnkey equipment solutions for industrial process applications or to remediate previously contaminated sites. Using renewable energy technology to solve environmental remediation and pollution-control challenges can have compelling economic benefits. Current commercially available pollution control and remediation approaches, such as UV lamps or filtering processes, are power hungry and expensive to operate, require large construction budgets and significant footprints, and often do not meet discharge requirements. FTI’s technology offers an entirely new approach to environmental remediation and pollution control: RayTM uses renewable energy, is highly reliable and has little on-going costs of operation, and, being mobile, can swiftly be deployed to almost any location. This invention will enable rapid market adoption of our solar-based solutions without the use of fossil fuels or electric grid dependence. As such, it has significant potential to disrupt the existing $70B U.S. environmental equipment markets. RayTM relies on solar exposure and does not provide continuous 24/7 processing. The system is most effective for applications where process effluents can be tanked or stored in a holding pond for daytime clean-up or remediation activities where contaminants are contained in groundwaters, soils, or solid wastes. Additionally, multiple RayTM systems can be deployed simultaneously to handle effluents in high volume, thus taking greater advantage of available solar hours. Current Status FTI’s “go-to-market” plan is to focus on applications in the agriculture and dairy industries where the mobile, off-grid, and lowcost properties of our product will be most valued. We have completed extensive, multi-year field evaluations with Oregon State University that have demonstrated efficacy of RayTM systems for a variety of applications. Leveraging these results, we have executed sales distribution agreements with agents representing the dairy, agricultural, and food processing industries and secured our first commercial orders worth over $1M for the RayTM 8’ system. We have also established third-party lease financing capabilities to enable sales to customers needing credit assistance. Our immediate goals are to fulfill our initial orders and secure a total of $4M of new investment (750,000 shares @$5.34 per share for 36% ownership) to finance the growth of FTI. This investment will be used for product fabrication and scaling the 8’ system to 16’ and 40’ for larger applications requiring greater gallon per minute (GPM) throughputs. Furthermore, we will use these funds to build our sales and marketing capability and broaden our channel and end-customer reach. In the longer term, our goals are to: • Invest capital to expand our patents to international markets. • Configure RayTM for additional applications such as desalinization and solids incineration. • Capitalize on current Air Force research relationship to pursue deployment at contaminated DOD facilities. • Establish distribution structure and licensing arrangements for distribution to and potential manufacturing in developing economies. • Negotiate a Joint Venture with a leading remediation engineering firm for wider distribution and larger production volumes. FTI has ten shareholders to date and raised $1.25M in private equity. The company has established broad-based patent protection, maintains strong solar lens and systems integration IP, and secured a manufacturing and systems integrator partner. We are currently valued at $7M.