Meta Materials (MMAT) Stock Heats Up on Partnership Hopes

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  • Meta Materials (MMAT) is up 29% in the last month on a $4.3 million order from an unnamed central bank.
  • The company’s KolourOptik technology is meant to fight counterfeiting.
  • The company remains unprofitable but it has more than one trick up its sleeve.
MMAT stock - Meta Materials (MMAT) Stock Heats Up on Partnership Hopes

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Stock in Meta Materials (NASDAQ:MMAT), based in Nova Scotia, is rising on a key order and hype from management.

The company was worth over $3 billion at the height of last year’s tech boom. The stock is now up nearly 40% since the start of trading on Oct. 12. This puts Meta Materials’ market capitalization at $380 million.

Since the start of 2022 MMAT is down 57%, but over the last month, it’s up 29%. The bulls see the company scoring key breakthroughs. Bears remain skeptical.

What’s Happening?

Key to the stock’s rise is a $4.3 million order at its KolourOptic business, which will be used to fight currency counterfeiting. This could rise to $41.5 million over five years.

KolourOptic is an optical material that can appear to deliver 3D effects on a 2D plane. The order, and a previous $2.2 million award for development and samples, comes from an unnamed central bank.

The $4.3 million is more than the company brought in during the entire second quarter, which in turn was over four times more than brought in during the same period a year earlier. While that’s good news, the company still lost $24 million for the quarter, as general expenses ballooned.

The hope is that KolourOptik, from Meta Materials’ Nanotech Security Corp. unit, can bring it a piece of the $29.8 billion market in security printing. Technologies to fight counterfeit currency alone could represent $6.1 billion in business by the end of the decade.

Founder and CEO George Palikaris has also been pushing the company’s technology in Japan, seeking support from potential suppliers and customers.

InvestorPlace’s Eddie Pan writes that Palikaris is getting support from outside investors. They like its NPORE ceramic separator and PLASMAfusion coating technologies for use in lithium-ion batteries.

MMAT Stock: What Happens Next?

I have been highly skeptical of Meta Materials. Even if it wins a central bank security printing contract, I don’t see how that justifies the company’s current market cap. The value of its battery technology, meanwhile, is unknown, as is the company’s value in a sale to a larger firm.

On the date of publication, Dana Blankenhorn held no positions in any companies mentioned in this article. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.com Publishing Guidelines.

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Article printed from InvestorPlace Media, https://investorplace.com/2022/10/meta-materials-mmat-stock-heats-up-on-partnership-hopes/.

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