Yeah. Who's heard our pitch before? One, two. I know two. Anybody else? I always say, if you haven't seen us in the last six months, you won't even recognize the company. It's morphing so much. We've been at this all 16 years. It's a long journey. Innovation's tough to do. We can now write a book about it. We've been innovating in a number of different markets. We found some success, which is, thank God, we found success. We've got more success coming. We've really refined our model quite a bit. We're going to talk about that. Innovation Engine, we make life better. It's high purpose-driven. We always say, "We do good stuff. Worthy. Worthy of investment. Worthy of a career." We want to make money at it. We want to do good and make money at the same time.
Remember the safe harbors, of course. Look at the Ks and the Qs. We've got risk factors out the ears. I mean, they're just everywhere. It's all risk. Make sure you study that. The thing is, we overcome risk, right? We overcome hurdles to success, but they're numerous. Sometimes they take some time. We are innovators, scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs. Heavy science and engineering. We've got a staff now of about 45 employees, which is a pretty good critical mass, actually. And 12 PhDs and 27 engineers. Rhetorically, we could do just about anything. Not literally, but rhetorically, we could. We look at problems in a way that most people can't. They don't have the luxury, the risk tolerance, the patience to do that. We do that every week.
We literally sit on conference calls and we talk about what's going on in the world and could we make an impact? Could we make an impact? Is it worthy of our time, our energy, our precious capital? We're passionate about the impact, driven by mission. Best in class, right? We only do number ones. Now, that's an argument. I'm happy to take a challenge anytime because we believe they're number one. And we have a good argument. And we have evidence to support that claim. We're going to talk about some of those. We focus on problems that don't have a good answer. And really, a capital-conserving strategy. It's one of the cornerstones of the business. We do so much with so little that we can do a lot. So how do you do that? You invent, prove, and partner. Invent, prove, and partner.
We're focused on that spot in the game of discovery, validation, find the channel, prove it up, make a business case, and then partner for distribution. What happens in that business model, it's hard to do. I can testify. When you do it right, it's astronomical growth and a huge margin and capital-conserving. In the portfolio, we have four operating units at the corporate office. We have me and the finance team, of course. Engineering group. The engineering group was literally world-class engineers at a 55,000-man global juggernaut, Chicago Bridge & Iron. Anybody know that name? CB&I? Before that, they were at Shaw Group, then IT Corp. That industry is a tough industry. It's a tough industry. They make small margins and they tell their engineers to get in their dadgum cubicle and build their hours. That's the game, right?
The innovation is really thwarted so often. We have unleashed them. We pulled them out of their cubicles. Let's go make an impact. Let's stretch ourselves to go find a discovery that can actually move the needle. They joined us about seven years ago. They have become almost the center of the universe in our company. Everything kind of revolves around them. The science and the engineering sponsor support for all these operating entities. We also have external. 130 grants, probably $4.5 million. The Canadians have great financial resources and incentives to do innovation. Units. Odor and VOC. I'll talk about all of them. Clyra Medical Technologies is infection control and wound care. BioLargo Equipment is water and PFAS. Everybody know what PFAS is? P-F-A-S. Forever chemicals. That's the stuff that big companies like DuPont and 3M made nonstick coatings.
They use fluorine carbon bonded chemistry that lasts forever because nature can't degrade it. It's one of the largest environmental issues in the world right now, estimated to be a global $17 trillion problem linked to birth. It's in your water. It's in your cosmetics. It's in your food. It's in the air. It's in oil and gas. It's in your pharmaceuticals. I mean, it just goes on and on. We have a new battery tech. We're about two and a half years in. And it's pretty astonishing. Focus on long-duration energy storage. That's grid scale, big format batteries. We think this is an important slide because what it's really talking about is the things you can't see. Analysts want to look at your revenue and your earnings and your dilution, all that. Of course, it's important. And we got some good numbers.
We'll share that too. What you can't see is what lies beneath. Why? Let me give you an example. On ONM, that's the $100 million. It's a lower number. We're commercial. It's our number one revenue generator. Last year, that operation generated $5.9 million in free cash flow. It's an odor product. It's a pet product. Everybody know the brand POOPH?
This is POOPH.
We invented that product. We manufacture the product. We make a little money on manufacturing. We make a little money on royalty. Then we get a carried interest. Listen, carried interest in the brand. Their brand value is somewhere around $250 million-$300 million. We own 20%. You think that's reflected in our stock price? No. It's an unseen value. It's inherent in the way we do business. All of these assets have a growing dynamic value.
There's things that really you don't see until. We learned the game. We became expert at the space. Okay. In the third year of operation with the right partner, we generated $5.9 million in free cash flow. Okay. ROI is pretty good on this one. That's the way all the assets are built. As they find their way. How to design products and make the chemistry work in those products. Excuse me. They're full circle stories for the company. I won't kill you with them, but just talk about pads for two seconds. The pad business is a commoditized business dominated by supply chain that's big CapEx. Big boys making lots of pads. They do these huge rolls and they run them like speed trains, okay? When they run a line for 10 minutes, it fills a truck. Which means what?
New boys have a hard time finding their way into the market. You don't have enough buying power. In this case, the opening order for pads is in. Great customer for that vendor. What happens is we get best pricing right out of the gate because we built the distribution channel to support the demand for the supply chain. Global multinational. We haven't disclosed the name yet. We're anxious to do that. We think we're really close. We worked about two years. It's been about a three-year journey, two years in preparation. They basically said to us, "Look, we love this. This is awesome. I'll tell you what the product does. We love the product, but you got to show me you can produce." Now, remember, we're trying to hang on to supply chain, right? We want to supply the product. Why? Because that's continued IP.
The more you touch the product, the more you advance your intellectual property. The more you advance your intellectual property, the more secure position for the long haul. That's a big ask. You're talking, "Hey, we're going to supply you." They go, "Dude, have you ever supplied a company like us?" That's their first objection. They said, "Okay. Look, we'll do the deal. You got to show me you can make a million units a year times two products, two SKUs." We completed that about 14 days ago. Just about killed us. Took $3.7 million. It's got a whole team machine. We've done it. That's the good news. We've done it. We're in that final stage of now saying, "Okay. Everybody believes we can now produce." Two years. We invested $3.7 million, $2.1 million in equipment. That's investing activities in CapEx.
Our partner on the manufacturing side, remember the model, outsource manufacturing, right? Make money on manufacturing, make money on royalty. It's at $5 million in the CapEx to build the system that makes that equipment. Now, the product is focused on infection control, the first one to go to market. There's two categories we're focused on: infection control and wound care. In the long run, it'll be dental, dermatology, eyes, ears, on and on it goes. Infection control. It's a liquid chemistry that's used in the surgical suite. That sterile field, you know what that means? Sterile field. Very high bar. That means the product's sterile, the package is sterile, and the package in the package is sterile. There's a lot of sterilization going on, okay? Tricky manufacturing technique. Why is that important?
We're partnered with a company that holds 90% market share in the space where this product will get used. It's a co-branded strategy. Our global multinational puts their brand on it. We manufacture it. We take it to market on a contract buy rate. That contract buy rate includes all of our yield. We expect that product to generate between $40 million and $50 million the first year. It will go up to hundreds of millions. We think we can take it public at a $500 million market cap in about a year and a half. Now, we own 52% of that company. Make sure you get the metrics. 52% and a 6% royalty. It's an unseen value. Yeah, we got to prove it. Of course. Get the deal done. Get it launched. Watch the revenues flow. Of course. I get it.
We spent 14 years and $20 million to get that product to market. It's going to create a billion-plus in value. You talk about ROI, spend $20 million, make $500 million. That's a good deal. That's our business. Big market. All these different markets are part of our attack. I was in Europe last week at the EWMA, European Wound Management Association. I don't get to do that very often. I was on the front line, right? The clinicians come through and they say and they look at it and they go, "All right." They say, "All the stats on this here." They say, "I could use this last night for. When can I get it?" The claims are so astonishing. Frankly, they're so good that it's hard for a lot of people to believe they're true.
We deal with that every day because that's the nature of innovation. It is broad spectrum. We have three-day antimicrobial activity. We have biofilm efficacy. There is not a product in the world that can claim all those in one product. It is number one. Number one in the world. You have to have the strategy. You have to scale manufacturing. You have to find the right distribution to put that product to work. That is what we have been doing for a long time. Now it is finally going to go to market. We hope to have some more news on that soon. We acquired a battery tech. We have been about two years into this project. That is the Cellinity cell. That is about 3.5 inches, about 13. That is a very large cell. We are focused on long-duration energy storage. Safer, more sustainable, durable, efficient.
We also have about a 70% cost of goods advantage over lithium. No rare earth elements. No lithium, no cobalt, no nickel. It's an astonishing claim. Eight years of R&D before we acquired it. Professors from the University of Tennessee and the company that was doing the development had two of their founders actually pass away. It's a very sad story. The son of one of the co-inventors joined our team, brought the tech with him, put a deal together. We have recreated what they did in eight years. We recreated in two. I thought it'd be a year. I thought I could do it for $1 million. It was two years and it was $2 million. It's not that easy. Now we're at the point where we validated the prototype. We're in the scale-up mode.
We're seeking third-party validation, which I'm hoping to get done in the next three weeks. We should be able to get it done. Even that was more difficult than I would have ever imagined. This article appeared about four months ago in The Economist. The next trillion-dollar business, long-duration energy storage. Anybody know energy? It's a fascinating field, right? Batteries are a cog in the wheel that enable microgrid development. They enable grid balancing. They enable offloading renewables. Where you put solar, you got to put battery. That's the game. This demand for good grid-scale batteries is insatiable. Everybody know Eos? EOSE? You know they claimed $13 billion in backlog? $13 billion in backlog. I mean, it's astonishing. That's a zinc bromide battery. A zinc bromide battery is a good battery. It's not our battery. It's not going to compare to the stats that we're talking about.
Now, they are at scale manufacturing. They got the first line operating about 12 months ago. They got, I think, $300 million from Cerberus Partners. Private equity owns the company. The DOE put in another $200 million. They are well capitalized and they are building factories, okay? We came up with an idea. Now, also the fire risk. In the international markets, you know what they say to me? In the international, not U.S. We talk about U.S., they say, fires and all this other stuff. That's real. Runaway fires are a real deal. You've seen it. Hurricanes down in Florida, all the Teslas light up. In the international markets, you know what they worry about? China. Global supply. Geopolitical China dominance. They can't stand it. They just can't stand it. They have all been burned. All, rhetorically. A lot of people have been burned. Okay. We solved those.
This is a perfect BAMA, Buy America Made America project. Export technology. Now, I'm going to show you our business model. I don't expect you to be able to read all this, but you're welcome to pull back later. I'm not going to go through it all. It's just got a whole bunch of claims that are outstanding for safety and no fires and round-trip efficiency. Anybody know what that word? That's how efficient the in-and-out cycle of a battery is. We get 95% round-trip efficiency. It's a 20-year battery. It doesn't degrade. There's no internal degradation. There's no outgassing. It's made with salt and some sulfur and some other sodium, some other chlorides. Some other chlorides. And we have a huge cost advantage. Look at that. 190 versus 302, right? Our price point is 65% discount less than. Okay. This is a big one.
552 energy density versus lithium at approximately 165. 2.9x the energy density of lithium. Energy density is like punch for the weight, the mass, and voltage. Extraordinarily high voltage. Again, I'm going to go pretty quick because these are pretty techy. This is just some really technical data to show. Charge and discharge cycle, and you've got a three-tiered stage. As you increase the voltage, we are able to extract this extraordinary energy density. It's the recipe and the design. Here's the manufacturing. It's a capital access and technical expertise. We made a decision. This.