Peratech receives £1.1M investment from YFM Group to fund expansion

Funding

Following the recent signing of licensing agreements with Nissha and Samson Electro-mechanics for 3D input technology for mobile phones, Peratech Ltd has announced that YFM Group managed Partnership Investment Finance has invested £1.1 million in the company.  

This will be used for further research and development of Peratech’s Quantum Tunnelling Composite (QTC) technology for touch technology, as well as growing sales in overseas markets. QTCs are electro-active polymers that enable touch to be translated into an electrical reaction, allowing devices to incorporate very thin and highly robust sensing of touch and pressure.  

Mark Winderbank at YFM Group said, “Peratech’s recently announced license deals with major international companies Nissha and Samsung Electro-mechanics demonstrate how QTC can open up exciting new ways of doing things.”

QTC’s enables traditional, old-fashioned switches in electronic devices to be replaced with ultra reliable QTC versions with no contacts to wear out and no air gap to be contaminated with water or dust.  QTC is force sensitive, opening up new applications in which the current flowing is directly proportional to the pressure applied.  

This will enable a new category of touch-sensitive, human machine interfaces to be created with a three-dimensional aspect.  For example, the width of a line being drawn electronically can depend on the pressure applied, an ideal feature for Asian and Chinese characters; or pressing harder moves faster down into a menu structure on a mobile phone.

Philip Taysom, joint CEO of Peratech, said, “The company has invested significant R&D efforts to understand this new class of material science it has invented.  We are now at the stage where its ability to add value and completely new innovative features, which provide significant commercial advantages, are clearly demonstrable as can be seen from the licensing deals that we are closing.”