D’Arcy Polychrome

Executive Summary

Changing the way the world buys colour

D’Arcy Polychrome Limited (DPL) intends to disrupt the existing global decorative paint market.

drikolor® is a new, patented product category created to solve the problem for homeware retailers wanting to enter the colour and paint market.

“Category creators experience much faster growth than companies bringing only incremental innovations to market.”

– Harvard Business Review, Why It Pays to Be a Category Creator, 2013

drikolor® enables new channels such as home décor, lifestyle and online stores to enter the ~US$46 billion global decorative paint market and sell colour to consumers

As fashion brands move into the lifestyle market, homewares become a part of that offering. Colour is used extensively throughout design & furniture retail stores; we know from research that these channels don’t want to carry tins of paint – only drikolor® enables them to capture revenue from all the work they already do with colour.

Traditionally, paint and interior colour is sold in big box stores, hardware stores and destination paint stores because currently, all paint has to be coloured using a tinting wheel and a shaker.

This is where DPL believes its greatest opportunity lies, selling the drikolor® pigments through disruptive retail channels. DPL will provide these channels with access to the interior colour market where there was previously a high barrier to entry; and offering a better buying experience for the customer.

How does drikolor® work?

We have developed a unique technology that means colour can be added to paint and other materials in a dry, granulated ‘stir in’ powder that can be stirred into a common tin of base paint, as easily as sugar stirs into coffee.

Research tells us that customers want their home décor store to provide a colour solution that will tie a room together and they don’t mind paying for designer colours. The majority would actually prefer selecting from a smaller, curated palette.

Colours can be spontaneously purchased where they are seen or experienced such as in a furniture, design or décor store and can then be easily mixed at the time of use with a base paint bought from any outlet. So we offer simplicity and a more pleasant buying experience for customers.

To support our growth, drikolor® is looking to raise up to $1m (13.32% of equity) with a minimum raise of $500k (7.13% equity) through this equity crowd funding offer, in parallel with money raised through wholesale investment.This investment will enable us to:

• Focus on selling in the US and drive marketing & sales into the B2B and B2C markets
• Undertake additional R&D into concrete and other building materials
• Support our IP portfolio and manufacturing activity

drikolor® is primarily focused on driving sales by signing up large homeware retail stores, and acquiring advocates by growing our base of designers specifying the product. We’ve had good early success with the designer market and some early interest from large, well-known homeware retail chains. In addition, we’re also looking at driving online sales through our own online store and through our design partner, dwell™, a US based design influencer and media company that publishes a design magazine, online blog and its own online store. Additional funds will give us time in market to focus on sales into the US.

DPL has already secured investment capital from highly regarded investors in Australia, New Zealand, Europe and the United States, with expertise in consumer marketing, manufacturing and the management and divestment of high-growth ventures.

From Petone, New Zealand to the world

drikolor® is an exciting technology developed in New Zealand that will revolutionise the way paint & colour is sold globally. We have a vision of seeing our technology and this company being a global business and drikolor® being world recognised. Here’s the chance to be part of a New Zealand company with aspirations to go global starting with the US.

So far in the US, we’ve had designers specify our product for large upscale homes including the homes of Carrie Fisher and Ridley Scott. And had the homeware store Stahl + Band launch us in-store.

All R&D has been in New Zealand and this means we help retain the trained minds of our young scientists. We have product available for sale, more product development in the pipeline and are at the exciting stage where we are selling into market. To make sure we have the time we need to develop the sales pipeline, and other market opportunities, we need your investment.

Product Overview

drikolor® is a range of curated pigments, sold in small stylish vials containing dry granulated ‘stir in’ colour for paint. The development of ‘stir-in’ pigments, that have consistent properties across a wide range of colours, is a significant technical achievement.

Our customer base

Business to business

• The US homewares market, as we believe it offers the greatest potential for volume of sales
• Local design stores
• Partnerships with paint companies
• Specifiers, Designers & Architects (SDA market)

Business to customer

• Online sales direct to users
• Local & international designers

In 2017, the United States homewares market is forecast to have a value of $104 billion, an increase of 24.2% since 2012.

Intellectual property

drikolor® has been developed using a proprietary formulation and production methodology that has been successfully manufactured at commercial production scale to produce a differentiated and high value product. Our plant is situated alongside Callaghan Innovation’s plant in Petone, near Wellington.

DPL was notified that the first of its two patents has been allowed in the US and Australia.

DPL is vigilant in building and retaining trade secrets, which can provide an additional layer of protection, especially around formulation and manufacturing. DPL’s IP position potentially enables multiple commercial pathways: licensing, product sales, contract manufacture, and sale of the IP as an asset.

The same patent has been examined by the International Preliminary Examining Authority (IPEA; European Patent Office) and they report that it is novel, involving an inventive step and industrially applicable, which are the tests for patentability. DPL is now reviewing in which countries to file national applications.

Based on similar technology to drikolor®, Toka™ has been developed for the global concrete, plaster, grout and floor levelling markets and we’re in the process of further developing & investigating these markets and associated IP.

There’s also the potential development of structural colour, in partnership with Callaghan Innovation and Harvard University. Structural colour is a technology where the colour is a result of the structure, like the colour in a bird’s feather; rather than pigments. DPL is currently working on a project in collaboration with the Victoria University of Wellington and Harvard University to explore applications of this technology.

Product

The Problem

Homeware, décor and design stores have been shut out of the paint/interior colour market until now!

Historically paint companies used coating performance to sell their paint; today colour is the principal branding tool of paint companies yet the last major piece of innovation in the delivery of colour was the introduction of the tinting wheel into paint shops in the 1960s.

The existing system, of using measured doses of liquid colourants mixed in a paint shaker, is complex, noisy, messy, wasteful and can be unreliable in reproducing a desired colour. It also requires capital expenditure, trained staff and significant retail space.

DPL addresses these problems though a disruptive technology, which enables colour to be delivered as a unique dry powder that rapidly disperses into plain base paint. Colour can be easily and rapidly introduced to the base paint either at point of sale or at point of use.

DPL’s platform technology provides the ability to significantly reduce the constraints associated with traditional liquid tinting, while at the same time partnering with colourists and home décor stores to provide the ability to sell colour through new channels and other geographical markets.

The drikolor® pigment products are an ecofriendly solution, compared to existing tints, as they contain none of the additives required in traditional tints to prevent congealing and drying and are more concentrated (volumetrically) than existing pigments, providing for more efficient transportation.

drikolor® also reduces wastage as it allows for paint to be tinted only when needed so no more half empty paint tins sitting in customers’ garages. It also offers painting contractors flexibility when colouring bulk interior paint.

D’Arcy Polychrome

DPL is a developer, manufacturer, packager and marketer of pigments for paint and other materials.

drikolor® technology has the potential to revolutionise the way people buy paint and colour. The ability to sell proprietary colour to markets globally in a ready to use, easy to transport and store format is a significant global commercial opportunity.

DPL’s technology and manufacturing process creates significant value by turning a commodity product (raw pigment) into high-value finished material. DPL can design and manufacture a range of products targeting both entry and premium priced segments, with each segment offering clearly differentiated products. DPL offers entry priced drikolor® product manufactured using synthetic pigments, targeting the mainstream DIY market, and a range of natural and mineral pigments with a high pigment loading, targeting the premium Specifiers, Designers and Architects (SDA) and home décor markets.

We offer our B2B (homeware retailers, design stores) the opportunity to sell interior colour since they no longer have to:

• Carry a large number of sku’s
• Have trained paint professionals
• Deal with messy tinting wheels and
• Take up valuable retail floor space

In drikolor®, we’ve created a new product category that solves the problem for homeware retailers wanting to enter the colour and paint market.

• A better buying experience for the customer (consistent colour, designer specified)
• Multi-million dollar revenue opportunities for nontraditional retail channels (e.g. design furniture stores)
• Revenue for partnering paint companies

Source: ICNW