CEO and Chairman of NxLite, turning a nano-thin coating breakthrough into a product you can put on windows, plastic, refrigerators and cars.
David Mather runs a company most people have never heard of, working on a problem almost everyone lives with. NxLite makes coatings thinner than a wavelength of light and lays them onto glass and plastic so that heat stays where it belongs. He is the CEO and Chairman, appointed in February 2024 to carry the technology out of the lab and onto factory lines.
The company was formerly called 3E Nano. Its science came from founders Nazir Kherani and Nicholas Komarnycky. Mather did not invent the coating. He was brought in to do the part that trips up most clean-tech startups: turning a promising material into something manufacturable, sellable, and durable enough to sit on a window for years.
That distinction matters. Breakthroughs get headlines. Factories get customers. NxLite's coatings are silver-based, air-stable, and made from earth-abundant materials, which is the sort of sentence that sounds simple and hides an enormous amount of engineering. Making the chemistry cheap and repeatable at volume is the actual company. It is the problem Mather signed up for.
The stakes are ordinary and large at the same time. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, up to 30% of the energy used to heat and cool a building leaks out through its windows. Better glazing is one of the least glamorous levers in the whole conversation about building decarbonization, and one of the biggest.
NxLite L80 represents a paradigm shift in what's possible with energy-efficient glazing.
Most low-emissivity coatings only work on glass. NxLite's L80, launched commercially in July 2025, is the industry's first low-E sputter coating for polycarbonate and acrylic. It works on substrates as thin as 0.5mm, and it can go on a single pane, not just a sealed double-pane unit.
That opens doors the old technology could not. Plastic glazing shows up in cars, aircraft, agricultural equipment, and refrigeration cases, and lets manufacturers cut weight. NxLite reports improved U-values and solar heat gain control against competing pyrolytic or ITO coatings, while keeping the glass looking clear.
L80 is made at the company's Advanced Innovation & Manufacturing Center, a 45,000-square-foot plant in Canton, Michigan, sited in the heart of the auto belt. It is the first in a planned series of next-generation coatings.
Mather's resume reads like a tour of American technology. He held CEO and senior executive roles at Hoovers, Hewlett Packard, Compaq Computer Corporation, and Unisys. He ran the clean-tech firm MTPV Power Corporation. Most recently before NxLite, he was President and CEO of Alegion, an AI and machine-learning data annotation company, appointed to its board in 2020.
He has also founded and invested in startups, and served as managing director of Ensys Capital, a boutique investment firm. The through-line is not a single industry. It is the work of building teams and moving companies into emerging markets, the skill a technical founder usually cannot spare time to develop.
With strategic partnerships in place, global customers, and unique offerings, the Series A investment provides us the capital to meet the growing demand of our customers.
The Chicago-based investor led the Series A round announced in October 2025.
Backing the coatings as a lever for building decarbonization and energy savings.
Joined by ACT Venture Partners and window/door industry manufacturers.
NxLite's coatings are silver-based and air-stable, built from materials that do not depend on scarce supply chains.
The company was 3E Nano, Inc. before becoming NxLite - same science, sharper commercial identity.
Target markets stretch to refrigeration doors, transportation, aerospace and architectural retrofits.
Mather's degree is in computer science from Northeastern, a reminder that operators cross disciplines.
The plant sits in Canton, near the automotive supply chains L80's plastic-glazing story depends on.
A round that started at $9.2M grew to $13.1M - a vote of confidence, not a rescue.