Northann Corp. engages in the wholesale and retail of the vinyl flooring products, which are primarily marketed and sold in the United States and Canada.
The company brings additive manufacturing, commonly known as 3D printing, and the volume production of innovative building solutions, to home or business. The company’s robust portfolio of manufacturing solutions relies upon the use of ink, coating, resin, sound padding, glue and other raw materials to create a wide variety of flooring, deckin...
Northann Corp. engages in the wholesale and retail of the vinyl flooring products, which are primarily marketed and sold in the United States and Canada.
The company brings additive manufacturing, commonly known as 3D printing, and the volume production of innovative building solutions, to home or business. The company’s robust portfolio of manufacturing solutions relies upon the use of ink, coating, resin, sound padding, glue and other raw materials to create a wide variety of flooring, decking and other products for customers throughout North America, Europe and other regions under the brand name Benchwick.
Crazy Industry invests substantial resources in research and product development and is committed to rapidly building new products and customizable and functional solutions to delight the company’s customers. Crazy Industry’s product development team is committed to product design and development, and they focus their efforts on enhancing function, use, performance and flexibility of the company’s products. The company’s subsidiaries, Northann Building Solutions LLC (NBS), Northann (Changzhou) Construction Products Co., Ltd. (NCP) and Crazy Industry (Changzhou) Industry Technology Co., Ltd. (Crazy Industry), own a portfolio of over 80 granted, pending or published patents. The products reflect the evolving needs of the core customer’s home and business needs. The company strives to make the products customizable, functional and affordable. Presently, NCP manufactures four proprietary solutions in vinyl flooring using innovative 3D printing technology: Infinite Glass, DSE, TruBevel and MattMaster. Each solution offers distinct functionalities and aesthetic finishes.
The company’s revenue mainly consists of wholesale and retail of the vinyl flooring products, which are primarily marketed and sold in the United States and Canada. During the year ended December 31, 2023, 86.2% of the company’s revenue came from vinyl flooring products and other decorative panels.
NBS has also licensed some of its patents to i4F Licensing N.V. with the goal to promote the technologies covered by those patents in the flooring industry.
The company serves customers in North America (mainly the United States and Canada), Europe and other regions. During the fiscal year ended December 31, 2023, 98.23% of the company’s revenue came from customers in the United States and 1.28% came from customers in Canada. During the fiscal year ended December 31, 2023, 0.49% and 0.49% of the revenue came from customers in Europe.
3D Printing Technology
The company’s 3D printing devices use technologies including Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) system and LED/electron beam-curing 3D printing technology. The characteristics are as follows:
FDM systems and related technologies are the most accessible and widely used from consumer level to industrial level. 3D printers based on FDM technology print parts layer by layer from bottom to top by heating and extruding thermoplastic fibers (the most commonly used is ABS plastic). Production grade systems use a variety of standard, engineering and high performance thermoplastics with specific properties, such as toughness, electrostatic dissipation, translucency, biocompatibility, ultraviolet resistance and high thermal flexure.
LED-curing 3D printing technology is the earliest 3D printing technology and it is also a relatively developed 3D printing technology at present. The basic principle of this technology is to utilize the cumulative molding of materials, namely, to divide the shape of a three-dimensional target part into several planar layers, and scan the liquid photosensitive resin with a light beam of a certain wavelength, so that the scanned part can be cured, while the place not irradiated is still liquid, and finally each layer accumulates into the required target part, and the material utilization rate can reach 100%.
Products
The company’s 3D printed vinyl flooring panels consist of three layers, the substrate, which is the main body of the plank, the decorative layer, which shows the color and patterns, and the surface layer, which can provide different textures and functionalities. The company manufactures the substrate, and use 3D printing technologies to add the decorative layer and the surface layer. The company has a digital inventory of part designs and printing instructions and a physical inventory of raw materials. The company’s production is on demand. The company manufactures products in small batches and do not keep large physical inventory of the products. All of the company’s products are phthalate-free, customizable, durable, heat resistant, corrosion resistant, UV resistant and water resistant.
The company’s subsidiaries, NBS, NCP and Crazy Industry, own four proprietary 3D printing technologies for the production and manufacture of vinyl flooring, offering different functionalities and aesthetic finishes: Infinite Glass, DSE, TruBevel, and MattMaster. NBS, NCP and Crazy Industry own a portfolio of over 80 granted, pending or published patents on these technologies.
Infinite Glass
Infinite Glass is a decorative panel with a transparent protective layer that deflects harmful UV rays away from the decorative layer underneath it. The protective layer consists of a polyurethane composition which is the reaction product of a polyester polyol, a polyether polyol and an isocyanate. Without such protective layer, UV rays can penetrate the material and overtime damage the floor and cause discoloration. Infinite Glass greatly increases durability and reduces discoloration.
DSE
DSE (Digital Synchronized Effect) is a revolutionary technology that generates defined and synchronized textures to mimic real wood or real tile haptic. It can generate a multi-layered embossing structure which consists of at least one partially or fully cured base layer provided with a plurality of indentations, and at least one partially or fully cured elevated pattern layer formed by a plurality of elevations printed on top of said base layer.
TruBevel
TruBevel Technology can produce planks with pressed bevel effect, realistic grout designs and rustic edges, which provide more customization options.
ArmorDual
ArmorDual is a technology to infuse anti-microbial coatings as the top layer of planks. The ArmorDual coating is resistant to staining, mold and mildew that may cause unpleasant odor.
MattMaster-Electron Beam
The MattMaster is an electron beam curing technology to cure protective coatings for flooring and other interior surfaces. The conventional curing process of coatings for flooring and other interior surfaces requires a lot of energy to develop sufficient heat and curing time. The MattMaster curing process relies on the high energy of accelerated electrons that creates a bridging density in resin molecules, and therefore saves energy and reduces environmental impact. Regardless of whether the flooring is rigid core, wood, laminate, the company can produce a super low gloss with high product performance that is durable, anti-stain, anti-bacterial, color fading resistance for over 10 years. This technology can be used to create superior water-resistant dimensional stability to flooring and eliminate curling and cracking.
Blue Eleven
Blue Eleven is the company’s sustainability initiative. The substrate layers of Blue Eleven products are made with 80% recycled ocean plastic, sanitized and processed for safe reuse.
Envision
Envision is a patent-approved artificial intelligence learning system, comprising processors and non-transitory program storage devices (NPSDs) capable of reading instructions executable by processors to generate decorative patterns, such as decorative floor panels, wall panels or ceiling panels. The algorithm can recognize the characteristics in a sample image, search the company’s pattern database to find similar products that are already in its products lineup or generate a similar but distinctive pattern to be added to its products lineup. The company plans to build a database of patterns that it already own and patterns generated by the algorithm, so that when a sample pattern is input into the system, the algorithm can recognize the characteristics in the sample image, search its pattern database to find similar products that are already in its products lineup or generate a similar but distinctive pattern to be added to its products lineup. With the assistance of such algorithm, the company can save time and money on finding designs and offer more options to its customers. The company can also apply the algorithm to help customers find their desired products. By uploading pictures of desired products to the algorithm, the company can find existing product in its lineup that fits the samples the most or generate a new design that combines all the features the customer desires.
Growth Strategies
The company’s strategy is to provide high quality services and products, expand its product range and increase its market share.
The company is looking for an existing industrial facility suitable for manufacturing use that supports its manufacturing requirements, has a well-developed transportation network that would meet its demands, is served by utilities, especially electricity, natural gas, water, sewer and high-speed telecommunications, has a favorable local employment pool. The company plans to engage local experts to navigate local laws and requirements. The company will increase customer penetration and expand the geographical coverage of products, and therefore expand market share. The company plans to gradually shift manufacturing from China to the United States in the long term and eventually close the manufacturing sites in China.
Customers and Suppliers
Customers
During the fiscal year ended December 31, 2023, the company had revenue from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Croatia. The company considers major customers to be those that accounted for more than 10% of sales revenue. During the fiscal year ended December 31, 2023, two major customers accounted for a total of 91% of its total revenues.
Suppliers
For the fiscal year ended December 31, 2023, three major suppliers accounted for a total of 32% of the company’s total cost of revenues.
Intellectual Property
Patent
The company’s subsidiaries, NBS, NCP and Crazy Industry, own a total of 84 granted, pending or published patents on 3D printing technology for the production and manufacture of decorative products. As of December 31, 2023, NBS, NCP and Crazy Industry had 7 pending patents, 34 published patents and 43 granted patents. The 43 granted patents include 13 granted patents in the United States and the Netherlands The company has 4 pending or published patents under the PCT (Patent Cooperation Treaty).
The granted patents are listed as follows:
NBS has licensed some of its patents to i4F Licensing N.V. with the goal to promote the company’s technologies in the flooring industry. A wider market acceptance of 3D printed flooring helps establish the company’s brand further and to penetrate the markets and encourages innovation and changes to the rather developed and static industry.
NBS has also granted a sublicensing company the exclusive and worldwide right to sublicense certain other patents and enter into sublicensing agreement with sublicensees, pursuant to a license agreement dated May 1, 2019, as amended. The licensee agreed to develop a focused market approach to sublicense the patents. Net proceeds of all sublicense fees or other forms of royalty from the patents, subject to any definitive sublicensing agreement, after deduction of certain expenses, shall be shared equally between NBS and the licensee. The licensee shall report to NBS before entering into any sublicense agreement.
Trademark
NCP and NDC own a variety of trademarks under which the products are marketed. As of d December 31, 2023, NCP and NDC had registered eleven trademarks in the United States, four trademarks in the European Union and sixteen trademarks in China. Among such trademarks, the names Benchwick, Northann and Dotfloor are of great importance to the company’s business.
Domain
NDC maintains websites at www.northann.com, www.benchwick.com, www.dotfloor.com.
Research and Development
During the fiscal year ended December 31, 2023, the company invested US$1,899,299 in research and development.
Seasonality
The company typically see a decrease in market activity in the first quarter of the year (year ended December 31, 2023).
History
Northann Corp. was founded in 2013.
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