Tokyo (SCCIJ) – The high-performance coatings start-up Coat-X has forged a strategic partnership with the Japanese company OSG Coating Services, a publicly-traded corporation manufacturing tools for various industries globally. The cooperation will allow the young company from La-Chaux-de-Fonds in the French speaking part of Switzerland with currently 14 employees to further develop its customer base and technologies, as well as to benefit from privileged access to the Asian market.
Representatives of Coat-X and OSG celebrate the strategic partnership (© Coat-X).
Joint venture established
The collaboration agreements comprise an OSG minority investment of 10 percent in Coat-X’s capital, as well as the establishment of a joint venture in Japan, Coat-X Japan, with OSG owning a 51 percent stake in the company and Coat-X SA owning the remainder 49 percent.
The newly formed entity will be established within the premises of OSG in Shinshiro City, Aichi Prefecture, and will start serving the Asian market with Coat-X’s solutions directly from this new coating center at the beginning of 2022.
Coat-X described the collaboration as a very important step in its development. “It allows us to strengthen our capacity to serve existing customers, and it gives us a privileged access to the Asian market, including new industries where we are not present currently but where OSG already has a strong presence”, the company said in a statement.
“Joining forces with OSG represents a unique opportunity to keep innovating and bringing high-performance barrier coating solutions to new industries,” it added.
The two first employees of Coat-X Japan received their training in Switzerland (© Coat-X).
Ultra-tight coatings
The robust collaboration with Japan began with multiple earlier projects. Things recently accelerated with the training of Matsuzawa Kohsuke and Takeichi Satoshi in La Chaux-de-Fonds. Once back in Japan, they will be the first employees of Coat-X Japan.
Founded in 2015 and headquartered at the Microcity technology park (formerly Neode) in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Coat-X is specialized in the development and manufacturing of ultra-tight thin-film coatings, which protect high value-added components against moisture penetration and corrosion.
According to a report by Switzerland Global Enterprise (S-GE), Coat-X’s technology is unique for its superior hermeticity and minimal volume utilization while keeping costs at a competitive level. The start-up’s proprietary technology platform originated from a collaboration between pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson with the Engineering School HE-ARC.
With a commercial presence in 33 countries and production facilities in 17 of these, OSG is a partner of choice for Coat-X to keep developing innovative thin-film coatings, and to bring its “made in Neuchâtel” technologies to many different industries. OSG manufactures and sells cutting tools, rolling dies, gauges, machine tools, and machine parts; import and sales of tools. In 2020, OSG had sales of 104 billion yen.
Text: SCCIJ partly with material of Coat-X
