Gauzy CEO on the future of Smart Glass

Good morning.

Well, smart glass is the notion of enabling control of light through glass. I mean, glass is transparent. The uniqueness of glass is that it's transparent. It's a building material we use in the building industry, in cars, in all sorts of windows and otherwise. And smart glass is basically the ability to control light through glass without mechanical shutters. So we're seeing now a demonstration of this. It means that a glass can turn opaque or transparent on demand, any state in between. And so we enable the notion of controlling light through glass. This is a function that we do every day. When we wake up in the morning, we open a window, open a shutter or a curtain. Or if we're sitting in a car and we have a sunroof or a sun visor. So it's basically something we do every day. We control light through transparent apparel every day, and we enable that electronically embedded in a glass. We develop materials, smart materials that are embedded in or on glass to enable the control of light and its gradual control. It means that you can actually, today we offer technologies that enable you to control how much light comes through the glass. It's not just one or zero, but it's anything in between.

We founded the company end of 2009, started raising money in 2012, so up and running and fully operational since 2012, yes.

It develops and manufactures the chemistry itself, the smart materials. We developed two out of three commercial technologies today: PLC, hence liquid crystal, and SPD. It's two material technologies that we develop. We actually synthesize the chemistry from a molecule structure. We make emulsions and formulations and we coat it on thin film that is then embedded in glass or on glass to enable electronically to control light.

Yeah, it's sort of very high level, I'll explain it like this. The chemistry itself is a mix of particles that align and change when you apply an electromagnetic field to it. So it's a physical barrier on the nano level. Think of particles that are mixed and once you apply power to them, they align so that light can pass through or be blocked, or sometimes be semi-blocked, or only certain wavelengths can pass through. So it's basically a physical barrier on a nano level that is manipulated by electromagnetic fields that are applied on glass.

As I mentioned, basically we control light all day, every day, all the time. If it's here in the office, if it's in our house with a curtain or a blind, if it's in the car. So wherever you have glass and you have sun, where relevant. The two main target markets for Gauzy is the building industry on all its different segments. So it's commercial buildings, residential, retail, hospitals. We just completed a hospital in Finland actually, where they're trying to get rid of linen in internal partitions for hygiene purposes, but also for privacy. When a doctor checks a patient in an ER, he needs some privacy, but otherwise he has to have it open for other cases. So in hotels, we have the Crowne Plaza in Singapore Airport just completed, Hilton in San Diego, a few hotels here in Israel. So building industry on all its different segments, wherever you have glass and you need to shutter light or control light and you're doing it mechanically today, we can provide our tech to have that done embedded in the glass. Automotive. When I say automotive, it's not just passenger cars. Gauzy today is working with more than 10 OEMs. Published are two: Daimler Mercedes-Benz and McLaren. McLaren just came out in 2020 with two models that have an SPD sunroof where you can actually control the light on your sunroof with our technology. But it's not just passenger cars. We're working with more than 10 OEMs as I mentioned. It's also trains. We're doing a few POCs with a few train builders. I can't mention names. But aerospace, putting this on windows of airplanes. The Honda Jets, Honda has a line of jets which came out two or three years ago, all of them are embedded with SPD technology. As I mentioned, marine, yachts, cruise ships. Wherever you have glass and you have a lot of sun and you need to control light through it, we're relevant.

It's a good question. We believe it's the future. We believe that we have today technologies that can make glass smart everywhere. But you're right, it's still a little expensive. I mean, but like any technology, it goes down with volume. Luckily enough, Gauzy is not just developing the chemistry, it's also producing it. So we know how much it costs to make one square meter or 10 square meters or a million square meters. And once we ramp up and scale up quantities, we can have it in every household or every office or every car. And that's our target.

True. Our first production line is based here in Tel Aviv. Our second production line, which is dedicated for the automotive industry, was just opened two weeks ago in Stuttgart, next to all our main customers, the German OEMs basically. And yes, we're expanding. We're hoping to have a third production line during 2020. These three production lines are enabled us to produce about three million square meters a year, which is already significant. And to get back to the affordable, it's also a matter of priorities. I mean, it's not as cheap as mechanical solutions like a shutter or a curtain you have today, but we're getting there.

So I mean, material science is everything, right? I mean, everything is materials. We're looking at tech, we're looking at chipsets, we're looking at electronics. Everything is based on materials and chemistry. So material science is a discipline where you need more patience. It's deep science, it takes time to develop. When we're looking at R&D, the R has much more, the research has much more significance than just the D in development. But I mean, when you're looking at the academy and things that are coming out of the academy all over the world, smart materials are going to have a major place in the world, in the tech world, in the future. And not just in the 5-10 years, but in the 50 and 100 years to come.

Yeah, actually it is well known that glass generally is probably the most growing material when you're looking at interior design, office space and otherwise. Glass probably is the raw material with the highest growth rates. Why? Because glass is amazing separation. It provides you, it can separate between rooms, office spaces or otherwise. It has great engineering value because it doesn't take space. It's only one centimeter thick, so you're actually saving a lot of space in resin, cement, and drywalls and all that. It's sometimes cheaper. And on the other hand, you need sometimes your privacy or you need sometimes to open for a teamwork. So with our technology embedded on glass, you can have basically your wall if it was just a drywall or a cement with the hard separations. Otherwise, you can flick a button, you can switch a button and have it open as if it was just a glass separation. So if I have an annoying colleague, I could just switch him off and get some privacy. Or if you have a beautiful secretary, you can switch off and have it otherwise. Yes, but basically you need separations and walls inside internal spaces like office spaces. And glass walls today is the best solution. If you add Gauzy on top, you enjoy both the advantages of just any wall separating offices for privacy, but also open it up with a flick of a switch, creating a look and feel of a much bigger space when you have glass separations. It's just your perfect solution.

Yeah, so our technology provides both on the same substrate.

Thank you for having me.