MAX-VIZ, INC. REBOUNDING COMPANY ENHANCES IMAGES TO AID PILOTS IN CHALLENGING TIMES
Portland, Oregon. June 28, 2010. Max-Viz®, Inc. is announced as the Portland Business Journal’s 6th fastest growing company in 2010. Rebounding company enhances images to aid pilots in challenging conditions.
Max-Viz - Portland’s 6th Fastest Growing Private Company (PDF)
Max-Viz®, Inc. is announced as the Portland Business Journal’s 6th fastest growing company in 2010.
Rebounding company enhances images to aid pilots in challenging conditions.
The past three years has been kind to Portland-Based, Max-Viz, Inc., especially compared to its previous three.
Revenue for the developer of specialized vision systems for pilots increased from $1.66M in 2007 to $6.24M last year. The 275% growth brought the companies revenue back to its 2005 level, before the start of the three year skid.
CFO Dylan Anderson, says Max-Viz anticipates revenue this year of $9M. A cautious aviation industry slow to upgrade new aircraft with new equipment when proven technology exists is finally starting to replace older planes and helicopters. As that goes, Max-Viz which mainly sells through aircraft manufactures is poised for further growth.
The company reached profitability in 2009 by the fourth quarter and should be profitable this year.
With manufacturing outsourced, he said the company can scale up without adding additional employees to its 17 person workforce. Most of those employees focus on sales and marketing and research and development. OEM of helicopters and GA airplanes are among Max-Viz’s biggest customers. Major recent clients include Cessna and Eurocopter.
The company’s core technologies fuse different types of images that assist pilots in navigating challenging conditions, for example, an image might combine heat signatures seen by infrared cameras, visible light and night vision. Though Max-Viz continues to research improvements to its systems, CEO Elliott Troutman said, “It will focus on its current product line for the unforeseeable future because so much time is already required for the aviation inudstry to adopt new technology.”
“Despite the fact there is this miracle machine and everybody wants to fly, innovation is slow. Luckily because we are so new, we have a long way to go before we ever penetrate the a large slice of the market.”
Better understanding of Max-Viz’s technology, clearing regulatory hurdles and a loosening international market have all stimulated the company’s growth.
There are two categories of sensors in the aviation world: cooled and uncooled. One competitor, New Hampshire based Kollsman, Inc., makes a cooled sensor package that works through pilots’ HUD, but those systems can cost $1M or more. In contrast, Max-Viz’s uncooled product, can cost between $15,000 and $125,000.
Someone who buys a multi-million dollar system might opt for the Kollsman but on the other hand, a fleet of smaller, less expensive general aviation aircraft might create a high volume market for Max-Viz because aircraft owners typically like the cost of avionics below 10% of a plane or helicopter’s total cost.
Despite the pattern of slow adoption in the industry, Max-Viz may grow by way of product improvements. Max-Viz’s camera systems can’t see through clouds nor can they see through the thick dust by heavy military sized helicopters. The next step includes figuring how to keep costs down while tackling such conditions.
“The holy grail for us, is being able to give pilots the ability to land in a pea soup fog with no lights on in the middle of the night,” CEO Troutman said.
Max-Viz designs and markets the smallest, most reliable and affordable Enhanced Vision Systems for aircraft. The systems use real-time infrared sensors, signal processing, and a cockpit display to provide flight crews with actual images of terrain, runways, taxiways, aircraft and other potential obstacles much better than the naked eye during poor visibility conditions such as light fog, haze, smoke, brown / whiteout, light precipitation and darkness.
For further information, please contact:
Lou Churchville, VP Business Development
[email protected]
See Clearly, Fly Safely®