Linear and intelligent lighting specialist Bilton grew 70% in past year, expects further growth

The Bilton Group has established itself on the market with innovative products and newly-conceived production processes as a specialist for flexible linear LED lighting and intelligent light management systems. With the recently-conducted capital increase of EUR 1.6 Mio., the model company from Salzburg is now fit for rapid expansion. After a growth of over 70 percent in the last fiscal year, an increase in turnover for this year of more than 100 percent is planned.

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Salzburg // Private Austrian investors have added EUR 1.6 Mio. to the Bilton Group for the long-term securement of investments in R&D and in high-quality production plants. This creates a solid basis for the continuation of the strong development growth and the expansion of the international sales structure. The expanded Sales Team, which already possesses a lot of experience in the branch, has already achieved successes in the acquisition of new customers and in-depth reinforcement of existing business relationships. Bilton-Managing Director Thomas Blümke: “In the initial round of equity capital, we procured sufficient financial means to continue our growth trend. On the Austrian market, we are already the market leaders for linear LED modules. Now we wish to achieve this medium-term in Europe. In North America and Russia, we wish to convince the market of our products in collaboration with an established sales partner”.

Made in Austria
Bilton is the only European manufacturer of customer-tailored, flexible linear LED modules, and produces its products exclusively in Austria. In addition, Bilton offers LED control devices in all common signal versions. In contrast to the cheap Asian competition, Bilton asserts itself through innovative production processes and maximum quality demands. “We are the Mercedes amongst the flexible linear LED modules, but work with VW prices”, says Managing Director and company founder Patrick Müller on the market position. “This is possible through our well-planned production processes. These permit us – with little personnel – to offer our customers high-quality LED modules more quickly and according to their wishes”. Over 80 employees already work at the production location in Saalfelden, Salzburg.

Success through innovation
Since its foundation in 2009, Bilton has repeatedly produced innovations. For example, in 2014 the production of LED modules was revolutionised with the unique reel-to-reel procedure. Here the module base is unrolled from a roll and, after running through the individual stations, is rolled up again as a complete and inspected LED module at the other end of the production plant. In this one-stop process, all necessary working steps are conducted completely automatically in one production step. Manual working steps are no longer required, thus reducing error sources to a minimum. This year, the company was nominated for the Staatspreis Innovation (Innovation State Prize) for the use of printed electronics in the production of LED modules. With printed electronics, the circuits and conductor paths are no longer etched out, but rather simply applied onto any carrier medium using printing technology. “We use this technology to unite the best of both worlds – the higher productivity through printing technology with the positive scale effects of classic electronic components”, says Blümke regarding the advantages of this technology.

The Bilton Group in figures (2016):

// Planned turnover: EUR 15.4 Mio.

// Turnover growth: > 110 %

// Export quota: > 60 %

// Research quota: 7 %

// Employees: > 80