Lighting The Way With ORYN

When it comes to young companies trying to innovate with a completely new product, you often hear the expression “paradigm-changing.” When that product shows exceptional promise, you may even hear people call it a potential “category killer.” Right now, there’s an under-the-radar company that aspires to be both, with a new lighting technology that has applications across a broad spectrum of markets and industries. Its name is Oryon Technologies, Inc., and it trades on the OTC market under the symbol ORYN.

Oryon Technologies develops and makes innovative next-generation, flexible, crushable, water-resistant and wearable electroluminescent lighting (EL) technology marketed under the ELastoLite® brand. In 2002, Oryon secured multiple patents and intellectual property relating to ELastoLite, which can be incorporated into a wide array of products, including safety apparel, sporting goods, consumer goods and membrane switches, among others. (The company has produced a compelling video about ElastoLite, a product which has been in the making for eight years. You can watch it here: www.oryontech.com/investors/presentations)

Oryon has already had several significant successes marketing its elastomeric electroluminescent lighting technology, licensing some of its intellectual property for use in cell phone key pads, which led to the back lighting used in the Motorola RAZR. In 2010, Hollywood took notice of Oryon’s revolutionary lighting application and commissioned the use of ELastoLite technology for the costumes in Disney’s blockbuster film “Tron Legacy” and for costumes in the television series “Terra Nova”. ELastoLite has also been featured in apparel products sold by Nike, Lands’ End and Marmot Mountain Ltd.

As with most start-up businesses and companies whose shares trade over-the-counter, Oryon has yet to turn a profit. However, a series of potential catalysts are in the works that should give the company some high visibility—and potentially boost ORYN’s share price as a result—over the next month.

First, Oryon will be a major sponsor for the upcoming Smart Fabrics Conference to be held April 17-19, 2013 in San Francisco, CA. “This is an exciting time for our company as we embark on a concentrated effort to showcase our enhanced ELastoLite technology,” said Dan Gulden, Oryon’s Vice President of Global Business Development. “We’ll be meeting with many influential executives at this important conference.” (You can find out more about the conference here: www.smartfabricsconference.com.)

One week after the conference, ELastoLite’s lighting technology will be featured on the uniforms of two Rebel Athletic-sponsored teams at the upcoming World Cheerleading Competition to be held April 25-26 in Orlando, Fla. It will be the first time ever that lighting technology has been incorporated into cheerleading attire. To give you some idea of the potential marketplace, almost 4 million youths participate in cheerleading activities in the U.S. alone.

Notably, Oryon already has a deal in place with Rebel, which is an industry-leading maker of custom and couture cheerleading uniforms and apparel, and currently counts the high-profile Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders as one of its customers. As part of the deal, Rebel is Oryon’s exclusive representative to the cheerleading and dance industries in the U.S., Japan and Australia.

“We are delighted to have partnered with Oryon and to be able to introduce ELastoLite,” said Karen Noseff Aldridge, President of Rebel Athletic. “We expect this cutting-edge technology to be well received in our industry, and we look forward to a long and prosperous relationship with the team at Oryon.”

Tantalizingly, Oryon has its sights set on a much bigger market than just cheerleading. At last year’s Smartfabrics conference the company met with representatives from Nike, Apple, New Balance, Brooks, Raytheon, Adidas, Mustang Survival, NASA, Microsoft and other Fortune 1000 companies—showcasing its innovative digital printing of EL solutions for various applications across these different industries. Using its proprietary approach to color digital printing, Oryon can now print custom digital quality images with lower minimums, higher resolution and shorter lead times.

“The addition of proprietary digital printing capabilities provides exactly what many of our customers are looking for,” said Tom Schaeffer, President and CEO of Oryon. “It addresses rapid production times, increased profitability for customers and state-of-the-art, full-color reproduction. This is particularly valuable for our customers that produce branded products, such as headwear, bags, luggage, sportswear and outerwear.”

In related news, Oryon also announced plans to expand printing capacity through a relationship with Aluma Graphics (www.alumagraphics.com). Aluma Graphics is an ISO 9001:2008 facility with an established track record in commercial and industrial print applications. The arrangement has enabled Oryon to expand its printing capacity fourfold.

Technically, from a trading perspective, these developments couldn’t come at a better time, as ORYN’s shares formed a base during January and February in the $0.20 – $0.30 channel. Earlier this month, buying interest and volume picked up noticeably, with shares topping out last week at $0.47 on an intraday basis. That day over 850,000 shares changed hands, while trading volume has exceeded 100,000 shares during 10 of the last 14 sessions. Profit taking has set in since the big volume surge, with shares falling to a day low of $0.25 on Friday.

This kind of trading interest in a virtually unknown penny issue is uncommon, to say the least, and sellers may have provided market participants with a nice potential ORYN entry point by knocking the share price down to its current level. I would look for more sideways trading action over the next several sessions, with $0.20 offering a base of support. If and when ORYN’s price begins to ascend again on good volume, however, that may be a “tell” that it’s time to light up some profits with an ORYN trade, as good news may be right around the corner.

Good luck with this and all of your market dealings!

Warren Gates, Senior Analyst, Oakshire Financial