Dexerials Corporation (Head office: Shimotsuke city, Tochigi Prefecture; Representative Director and President: Yoshihisa Shinya; hereinafter the “Company”) announced that it has invested in and entered into a capital and business alliance with SemsoTec Group (hereinafter “SemsoTec”), a corporate group centered around the German automotive design house SemsoTec Holding GmbH (Head office: Garching bei Munich, Germany; Founder and Managing Director: Jochen Semmelbauer), with a view toward the establishment of a stronger partnership and business collaboration with the Company.
As of October 1, 2024, the Company has completed its investment of eight million euros (approximately 1.3 billion yen) in two subsidiaries under SemsoTec Holding GmbH, and the two companies have become equity method affiliates.
The Company, which began operating in 2012develops, manufactures, and distributes electronic components, adhesive materials, optical materials, and other functional materials that are indispensable in smartphones, laptops, and other electronic devices, as well as in automobiles, which are increasingly becoming electronic. The Company operates eight manufacturing and sales locations in Japan (including those of its subsidiaries) and twelve overseas. SemsoTec is a display and touch-oriented engineering, development and integration provider for complex HMI (Human Machine Interface) units for a variety of industries such as the automotive, smart home and high-end consumer goods industries. It has an extensive customer base, mainly in Europe.
The two companies began communicating in 2017, and since the start of their collaboration in October 2020,SemsoTec has been considering incorporating our optical elastic resin (SVR) into suitable designs, mostly in-vehicle displays, and SemsoTec has proposed material and technical solutions to automakers and customers working on in-vehicle displays. In addition, in October 2023, the Company introduced coating and lamination equipment for large, curved, and irregularly shaped displays, a new trend in in-vehicle displays, at SemsoTec’s Optical Solutions Center, and have been working with multiple customers to prototype, evaluate, and consider products using our materials and this equipment. Through SemsoTec, the Company has steadily increased its presence in Germany, the source of automotive design trends.
The purpose of this capital and business alliance is to deepen the partnership and business collaboration between the two companies and accelerate the growth of business. In “Expanding business in the growth domain,” one of the basic policies of the Mid-term Management Plan announced in May 2024, the Company sets a sales target of 30 billion yen for the automotive business in fiscal 2028, more than double the current level, and is working to expand its sales network in overseas markets as one of our key priorities. With support from the Company, SemsoTec will work to extend and strengthen its marketing function and production system to expand its business.
Through the strong relationship between the two companies, Dexerials will increase our presence in the European automotive industry, and by utilizing SemsoTec’s large customer base, mainly in Europe, the Company will jointly carry out design-in activities for OEM manufacturers and propose materials and solutions to tier 1 manufacturers. Furthermore, by jointly carrying out spec-in activities for the display manufacturers of major second-tier suppliers in Asia, we aim to create new business opportunities not only in Europe but also in the Asian market.
The Company aims to contribute to the realization of a sustainable society, achieve sustainable growth and increase its corporate value by establishing stronger and smoother collaboration with SemsoTec, which has deep knowledge and a network in the European industrial and automotive business, and by providing high-value-added products, technologies and solutions that are essential for the evolution of digital technology that helps resolve social issues.
