Winners

Plymouth-based Artemis Optical is a world renowned provider of high precision, optical thin film coatings for many ground-breaking high-tech applications. It is one of the UK’s largest independent thin film coatings providers, with a client portfolio that includes blue chip equipment manufacturers in the defence, aerospace, security, medical and analytical instrumentation sectors.

Thin film coatings are part of our everyday lives and can be found on a diverse range of everyday products, like the screens of our mobile phones or the anti-reflection coating on our spectacles. However, they are also used in far more challenging applications, and this is where Artemis has developed a reputation for providing innovative, pioneering solutions that enable businesses such as BAE Systems, Thales and Leonardo to develop their own high-tech systems.

Through these innovations, Artemis Optical has become a global business with export sales more than doubling in the last five years alone and overseas sales growth of 65 per cent across the last three years, with top markets including the USA, Europe, Singapore, Australia, the Middle East and the Far East.

The team are also looking at how the business builds on its reputation for technology and innovation by increasing its R&D as well as its manufacturing capability and capacity. Last year the business spent over £1m on a new high precision vacuum chamber and associated apparatus as well as test equipment. That spend profile is set to continue this year. They are also involved in a project focusing on enhancing machine performance and efficiency alongside Plymouth University’s Faculty of Science & Engineering.

Despite the problems caused by the pandemic, Artemis grew its business by 11 per cent, as well as increasing its highly skilled staff by 15% including several bright young graduates! The firm expects further growth in 2022 of around 15 per cent. Considering recent global events many countries around the world are looking to bolster their defences with the sort of hi-tech solutions that Artemis can provide, which is likely to lead to more UK and overseas business. The business aims to be carbon neutral by 2026.