Rick Cope, founder and CEO of NanoLumens [1], normally plays his cards close to his chest, open to answering what could be some tough questions, but closed-mouth on the precise details of his future plans.
[2]Perhaps it’s his background: as a U.S. Marine – including as special ops advisor for Desert Storm in the Gulf War under the late General Norman Schwartzkopf – it goes to reason he wouldn’t easily let out secrets of what the future would hold.
And after senior executive jobs at other companies – COO and CTO at Enrev Corporation, a battery charging operating systems company; president of H. Power, a publicly traded fuel cell company; president of U.S. Electricar – he’s been around the block in seeing the development, faults, successes and failures within various companies.
We interviewed Cope last Monday (Feb. 1/16), getting hold of him following one of his many flights within and without the U.S. as he deals with display clients and partners on the six continents where NanoLumens operates.
“We’re everywhere except Antarctica,” he said, making a quip about penguins that showed he also has a sense of humour.
Cope was in great spirits, having just returned from the opening of the new Xfinity East Plaza [3] at the AmericanAirlines Arena, home of the Miami Heat where he and various clients, partners and friends watched the Heat win over the Atlanta Hawks. But it wasn’t the game that had him riding high: it was the fact he was able to have good conversations and made several business deals during the event. And it didn’t hurt that he was able to show the NanoLumens displays in the newly opened Plaza.
“I find that you can get so much more done with things like this than spending money at every trade show,” he said. “That’s why we pulled out of having a booth this year at #ISE2016,” he said. “ISE is relatively expensive. I find that you can have a booth at trade shows for several years, then maybe pull back for a couple of years, putting your money at events like this weekend, and then maybe be back at the trade show again in the future. That’s not to say we won’t be attending #ISE2016. We’ll be there holding meetings, just not exhibiting. Sometimes things go in a cycle and you want to try something different.”
“Is it because things aren’t going well in the EMEA, where your Vice President of EMEA [4] was let go?” we asked. “Are you having difficulties in Europe?”
“Not at all,” said Cope. “As you grow, sometimes you have to modify, and while people may be good for a certain growth phase, at the next stage you need someone else. You have to have the right people in the right seats at the right time.”
Based in Norcross, a suburb of Atlanta, Georgia, NanoLumens offers a number of different products, with its flexible screens that wrap around columns and other flexible screen solutions making it one of the very visible companies in the digital out-of-home industry. Since Cope himself is known as not only building companies from the research and technology development stage to product commercialization (filing lots of patents along the way), but also as a major fundraiser, raising millions for his previous companies, we asked what happened to his plans for an IPO for NanoLumens.
“We planned for listing on the Toronto Stock Exchange, and withdrew because of the Canadian industrial economy,” he said. “With the Canadian market dependent on oil, and with the current situation there, going public in the down market would have also dragged the TSX down. It didn’t make sense at this time. We have resources, and we’re watching global market trends. We may still do it, probably even next year if the markets come back.”
“So you haven’t over-extended?” we asked.
“No, not at all,” Cope said. “NanoLumens is well capitalized.”
In addition to Private Equity Ventures [5], investors include Glenn Chamandy, president and CEO of Gildan [6]; the Delaney family (a wealthy Canadian family), Don Panoz (who, among other exploits, owned the Mosport Racetrack), Cope himself and “every employee at NanoLumens is a shareholder.” We noticed that many of these investors are Canadian – and then realized that, in founding and building NanoLumens, Cope acquired a technology company from Canada and assembled his team.
So what are we looking at in the future for NanoLumens?
Well, the strategy for Europe and the Middle East through 2016 involves possible acquisitions – possibly as early as this coming summer.
“We’re looking for companies with interesting technologies, interesting distribution and creative revenue, that we can add to our visualization,” said Cope.
Cope is careful about the company’s growth and patents on its projects. NanoLumens has its own R&D team (he won’t say how many people compose it) and a full-time patent agent is on staff.
Speaking of that led us to ask about NanoLumens’ new NanoClear transparent visualization solutio [7]n introduced in spring, 2015, and whether it and Planar’s LookThru OLED transparent display [8] would be going after the same markets. We didn’t get a full answer on that subject, but it was clear that Cope feels that NanoLumens’ Nanoclear is a superior product, having been developed and built from scratch by his company’s own team.
“NanoClear is not built from, based on or using another company’s product,” he said. “It’s very different from others.”
We also asked about a rumour that Christie had been offered a 10% equity in NanoLumens for a rumoured $10 million. Cope denied that point vigorously.
“It’s not true at all,” he said. “Christie is a good friend and a competitor.”
We also asked if he was looking for any people to fill specific executive positions in the company.
“No,” he says. “But we are always looking for people – in sales, engineering, R&D, project managers. We purposely don’t advertise. If you do, then you get swamped with a whole lot of answers from people who aren’t what you want. We find our people by looking on our own.”
So where does he find them?
“We keep our eyes open on people working elsewhere in the industry and also hire a lot of veterans, ex-Navy, etc.,” he said. “A lot of them offer great skills and find it hard to get into the commercial business world.”
We guess that Cope’s military background gives both empathy and a lot of contacts in that regard.
“One of our goals at NanoLumens is to develop leadership,” he says. “We want people to try different things.”
There are lots of departments with things they can try. The company’s various displays, thin, lightweight and curvable, are designed and assembled in the USA, and are backed by an industry leading, Six Year Zero Failure Warranty.
And whatever path Cope himself is following, it can’t be too rocky: he said that, as NanoLumens has grown, it has “almost doubled every year.”