Investors finance Vibrant’s growth

The Verge Fund, the New Mexico Angels and other individual investors contributed to Vibrant’s latest capital raise, which brings the company’s total private equity since launching in 2007 to more than $3 million.

The new investment provides Vibrant – which conducts non-destructive testing on aircraft parts with proprietary technology originally developed at Los Alamos National Laboratory – with ready capital to cover expenses for services to manufacturing and repair companies, said President and CEO Lem Hunter.

“This lets us respond to customer requests without blinking,” Hunter said. “If we get a call (for services) from Singapore, we need to be able to say ‘yes’ right away without worrying where to get the $10,000 to send two people there for two weeks.”

The need for such growth capital reflects robust interest in Vibrant’s technology.

“It’s a very good year,” Hunter said. “I’m more worried today about how we’ll get everything done than where we’ll get our contracts.”

Vibrant, which reported $1.6 million in revenue in 2011, topped the Journal’s 2012 Flying 40 list of fast-growing companies with less than $10 million in revenue.

Vibrant’s technology detects defects in parts by vibrating them and then applying advanced software algorithms to compare the resonant frequency generated with the resonance of a non-defective part.

Most other testing processes only assess surface irregularities. But Vibrant’s system provides precision readings of internal defects to determine whether a part is good or bad. That allows aircraft operators to get more use out of parts and save money.

Delta Airlines in Atlanta, Ga., for example, uses Vibrant’s system to test expensive engine turbine blades and other components to improve part reliability and avoid incidents that can cause millions in damages, said Delta principal engineer David Piotrowski.

“Reliability (with Vibrant’s technology) has gone way up, and cost has gone way down,” Piotrowski said. “It’s been a wonderful success story.”

In fact, Piotrowski wants to start “life-cycle” monitoring, whereby Vibrant would take resonant measurements on new parts and continue to test them over the years to track wear and tear.

Vibrant now counts about a dozen global aerospace corporations among its customers.

“They’re getting very well positioned with all the right companies in the aerospace world,” said Verge Fund general partner Dave Durgin. “They’re getting real name recognition.”

Vibrant licensed its technology from Quasar International, an Albuquerque company acquired by Illinois Tool Works Inc. in 2007. Quasar originally licensed its technology from LANL for use in the automotive industry.

Last year, Vibrant formed a joint venture with Quasar’s subsidiary in Germany to market Vibrant services in Europe. It has a similar arrangement with Johnson and Allen Ltd. in the UK.

The company operates at a 15,000-square-foot building near Interstate 25 and Jefferson NE run by the Illinois Tools Works subsidiary Magnaflux, which Vibrant contracts to make its testing machines.