Despite a 28 per cent fall in revenue and an underlying loss of £1.13 million for the first six months of its financial year, advanced engineering firm, Versarien remains upbeat about the future and continues to win business.
The Cheltenham-based advanced engineering firm published its interim results on Thursday 21 January 2021, showing a fall in revenues from £4.39 million to £3.12 million ‘reflecting the impact of Covid-19’.
But the report also reveals that sales of graphene were up from £0.07 million to £0.35 million, with its graphene-enhanced face mask proving to be a success.
Neill Ricketts,co-founder and chief executive officer of Versarien, said: ‘Despite the challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic, I am pleased with the level at which Versarien has continued to operate and particularly with the progress achieved within the graphene businesses where we have commenced the sale of our graphene enhanced face masks, as well as making further progress with a number of our collaborative projects.
‘Prototypes for the second-generation face masks have also been tested against SARS-CoV-2 and demonstrated a 99.92 per cent resistance to the virus.
‘We continue to be greatly appreciative of the support the UK Government has shown Versarien and its subsidiaries and, as such, we are proud to have provided essential supplies for the NHS and UK infrastructure at this crucial time.’
Versarien also landed a £5 million Innovate UK loan, along with first tranche funding of £1.96 million for its GSCALE defence project and is also working in partnership with Rolls Royce.
Deals with firms like Hanwha Aerospace in South Korea mean the business now has a ‘broad portfolio’ of graphene products and technologies it believes give it a foothold in valuable Asian markets too.
By Andrew Merrell
Follow SoGlos on LinkedIn and sign-up to the weekly SoGlos business newsletter for the very latest Gloucestershire business news stories.
