Smoltek’s CEO comments on the intended agreement that Yageo backed out of

On March 26, 2024, Smoltek had to announce that Yageo, at this time, does not intend to sign the license and ser­vice agree­ment with Smoltek.
Link to the offi­cial press release, from Decem­ber.
Link to the offi­cial press release, from yes­ter­day.

Yageo’s deci­sion not to go ahead and sign the license and ser­vice agree­ment that both par­ties intend­ed to enter into is extreme­ly unfor­tu­nate from our per­spec­tive, con­sid­er­ing all the ener­gy and the resources we have invest­ed in this collaboration. 

Håkan Pers­son, CEO of Smoltek

Håkan Pers­son, con­tin­ues:
“After this dis­ap­point­ing news, I have had intense dis­cus­sions with both the board and oth­er inter­est­ed par­ties. We will now grad­u­al­ly cre­ate a plan for how to pro­ceed. The poten­tial of our CNF-MIM tech­nol­o­gy for capac­i­tors is intact, and it con­tin­ues to be of great inter­est to Yageo as well as to oth­er inter­est­ed par­ties. Now, unfor­tu­nate­ly, Yageo has decid­ed to leave the col­lab­o­ra­tion with us, at least for the time being. And this means that we have to look at what oth­er pos­si­bil­i­ties we have.”

Back­ground infor­ma­tion on the col­lab­o­ra­tion

We start­ed this process togeth­er with Yageo right after the sum­mer of 2023. And we have col­lab­o­rat­ed inten­sive­ly dur­ing the autumn, which was then fur­ther inten­si­fied dur­ing the first months of this year with many activ­i­ties from both par­ties. But unfor­tu­nate­ly, based on their cir­cum­stances and pri­or­i­ties, Yageo has cho­sen not to pro­ceed with this con­tract nego­ti­a­tion at this time.

Håkan Pers­son, CEO of Smoltek

And he con­tin­ues:
“It is impor­tant to high­light that we have gained valu­able expe­ri­ences from this col­lab­o­ra­tion. They con­sist of both tech­ni­cal achieve­ments, regard­ing prod­uct devel­op­ment as well as indus­tri­al vol­ume man­u­fac­tur­ing, and an excel­lent plan for com­mer­cial­iz­ing the tech­nol­o­gy. We can con­tin­ue to build on this, regard­less of Yageo, with intact poten­tial when it comes to being able to deliv­er a unique capac­i­tor prod­uct to the mar­ket. We have thus gained a lot from this col­lab­o­ra­tion in terms of build­ing knowhow and rel­e­vant skillsets, as well as what we need to do to car­ry out a com­mer­cial­iza­tion. And we are still aim­ing to do this.”

“We had a part­ner in Yageo, who up until very recent­ly said they were will­ing to help us finance the remain­ing devel­op­ment by pay­ing for our devel­op­ment work. Now we have to find anoth­er way to do this. Their sur­pris­ing deci­sion was new infor­ma­tion for us, and I have spent most of this day try­ing to get a grip on the sit­u­a­tion and start look­ing at how we can resolve this for the future.”