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(Canada: Listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange. Symbol: DBO)
THE COMPANY
D-Box Technologies Inc designs, manufactures, and markets cutting-edge motion systems for the entertainment, simulation, and training markets. D-Box Technologies began to implement its haptic technology on seats in cinemas in 2009.
Haptic (which means anything related to the sense of touch or motion) technology uses actuators and software to simulate the sense of touch/motion, providing users with tactile sensations like vibrations, forces, and motions to enhance human-computer interaction.
In May 2025, it reached a major milestone. Its technology has now been installed in over 1,000 cinema screens worldwide. 23,000 seats in cinemas now employ haptic technology, where the seats can simulate 65,000 movements, vibrations and textures perfectly synchronized to the action on-screen.
It is used by leading companies such as Cinemark, AMC and Cineplex in North America.
D-Box’s global presence spans four key regions. North America leads with 46 percent of the screen’s global installation base. Europe, Middle East, and Africa follow with 28 percent, while South America hosts 15 percent of the screens. The Asia-Pacific region rounds out the global presence with 11 percent of the screens.
Seats in home theatre systems can also use the technology if bought through authorised dealers. Some existing seats could also be retrofitted with this technology.
THE TECHNOLOGY
We experience haptic technology in everyday use, such as when your iPhone vibrates or when you get a rumble in a gaming console that is consistent with the action on a video screen. Your car might utilise the technology when you get too close to the car ahead of you by jerking on your seat belt.
Haptics technology allows inanimate objects to re-create the feeling of using real objects, and then in turn allow these inanimate objects to touch you back (haptic feedback). The goal is to provide information to the user. The earliest application of this technology was probably in aviation: The controls of a plane would vibrate in tandem with turbulence so pilots could better understand what was going on outside of the plane!
D-Box uses haptics in through seats in movie theatres, home entertainment systems, in gaming and for training simulators. It is used in attractions and theme parks with VR rides.
What D-Box does is use haptic designers whose sole job it is to watch the movies, encode the content with haptic tracks that will make the movement perfectly in sync with the action on the big screen, and then fine-tune the experience to truly augment the level of immersion that moviegoers feel in a D-BOX seat. D-Box is working with Mila, a research firm to automate this process using AI, to save costs.
The motion is generated by using haptics actuators attached to the seats and software to coordinate motion with onscreen movements to create a truly immersive experience.
D-Box works with technology partners such as CM Labs on improving the technology, with studios such as Disney, Warner, Universal and Sony to encode their movies and with gaming companies such as Xbox, Ubisoft and Codemasters.
They have teamed up with Mercedes Benz to create a new motion platform for sim racing.
The fact that the seats themselves, currently in 1,047 movie screens, are called D-Box is tremendous branding for the company itself.
THE NUMBERS
The movie theatre pays for the installation of the D-Box seats used in each theatre. So D-Box does not have to fund that. Since the price for a D-Box seat is more than a regular seat, the movie thereto has a higher margin per seat, they share part of the extra revenue with D-Box under a licensing agreement.
Since 2009, the company has invested $ 30 million in capital spending and R&D, resulting in 140 patents granted and pending. Annual compound revenue growth rate since 2014 has been 8%.
In FY 2025, the company turned profitable for the first time. In the quarter ended June 30, 2025, (which for the company was Q1 2026), the company generated $ 13 million in revenue, up 49% year over year. Net profit was $ 2 million, up from a loss of $ 419,000 year over year. The company had positive cashflow of $ 2.7 million and cash and cash equivalents of $ 10.45 million. It has $ 1.4 million in debt and has a $ 18.5 million line of credit.
The company has a market cap of almost C$ 100 million.
The 2-year stock price chart:
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