Canatu gets 12M euro from European Investment Bank

The European Investment Bank (EIB) has announced its backing for five innovative Midcap companies of the Finnish industrial sector with loans totalling slightly over EUR 60 million for innovation in different fields. All five operations are supported by ‘InnovFin – EU Finance for Innovators’, with the financial backing of the European Union under Horizon 2020 Financial Instruments.

“Finland has long been one of the innovation leaders in the EU and the EIB is proud to continue its support for Finnish industries.” said Vice-President Jan Vapaavuori, responsible for EIB operations in the Nordic countries. “Thanks to InnovFin, the European institutions can really make a difference, by being able to back to ground-breaking and promising innovative developments in different sectors.”

Commissioner Jyrki Katainen added: “I am very pleased that the EIB and InnovFin programme put a strong emphasis on SMEs and midcap companies with strong focus on research and innovation – R&D being one of the areas where we see that the Investment Plan makes a real difference. Finnish innovative midcap companies and SMEs can now make even better use of EIB financing to create growth and jobs.”

The EIB supported Canatu with a EUR 12 million loan for the development and capacity increase of its Carbon NanoBud® based conductive film and touch sensor production in Finland. The investment will further speed up the continuing commercialization of the company’s products and allows Canatu to better serve customers in the consumer electronics and automotive markets. A part of the investment is used to attract more talent to the Canatu team and the Company has already started to recruit more employees.

Background Information:

The European Investment Bank (EIB) is the long-term lending institution of the European Union owned by its Member States. It makes long-term finance available for sound investment in order to contribute towards EU policy goals. In 2015 alone, it made available over EUR 1.6 bln in loans for Finnish projects in various sectors, including healthcare, industry and telecom.

Canatu is a leading manufacturer of transparent conductive films for specialty flexible and formable touch sensing applications. Canatu helps its customers to differentiate and increase the performance of their products. Company’s products are based on a new type of carbon nanomaterial (Carbon NanoBud®).  Canatu serves OEMs and their partners in the rapidly-expanding markets such as mobile and wearable consumer devices, white goods and automotive.

For further details please contact:

Mr. Risto Vuohelainen, CEO
Email: Risto.vuohelainen (at) canatu.com
Mobile: + 358 40 546 1217

Original story