Couple of points:
1) Market cap/fundamentals risk - let me firstly dismiss that by saying it's a risk only if you're gambling on the price short term.
Let me be clear: this is a spec stock with negative cash-flow at the moment. Talking about market cap and P/E ratios (or any kind of fundamentals) at this point is pointless because it needs to be making money before those things even come in play. (except for those who rely on bogus spec fundamentals to trade on)
Basically, it's a spec, mmmk? Albeit with a winning idea.
Ok, moving along:
2) Paradigm shift risk
Mix n Go is an almost "too good be true" technology. Better, faster, cheaper. That's why it's a game-changer. People don't like game-changers. They like the existing supplier relationships. They like the sailing trips, lunches, *cough* wines and little extendable pens with magnets that they get given when on junkets and conferences given by those said suppliers.
The biggest thing about disruptive technologies adoption is not about the technology itself. It's the social change that's required around the tech. Even after signing, people procrastinate. It's big, like buying a house or a car. It's hard to sign on the dotted line. It's even harder when you need 20 middle managers, 5 division managers and the board approval to sign.
This is more of a "time" risk, and that Anteo might run out of steam or money while twiddling thumbs. But it's like bashing your forehead against a wall. Provided you are an optimist, if you keep doing it: the wall will break.
3) Patent risk
So this is possibly the biggest one. Anteo have patents, but there's nothing to stop an Indian or Chinese company to copy this technique. Sure they would get sued, but you'd need lawyers in that jurisdiction and you need money to claim your stake.
The real issue is that Anteo is a minnow and if someone wants to take them on, Anteo would need deep pockets to defend their patent.
Of course, in the real world, corporations are neither as kind nor as ruthless as they seem. It's unlikely that such a disruptive technology would attract a challenger brave enough to face the patent courts. But it's a risk nonetheless.
4) Fraud risk
It doesn't work. It works in too specific lab conditions and is really hard/costly to reproduce in a production environment, or the results in real world application are much less than the numbers initially claimed.
This is the wildcard for me. We've seen lots of positive lab results, but lack of training/skill in POC or other scientists/engineers could fail to reproduce Anteo's lab results. Or they get much lower numbers (I'm sure in production it will be less then optimal, or failure rate could be high, just how much is the questions, and how much more can ADO improve the technique in their research).
These are the main ones off the top of my head.
I'm substantially invested in ADO, but with these risks in mind. Look if anything were a sure thing, someone would already be all over it and we wouldn't be discussing it on Hot Copper.
That said, no announcement from ADO is sort of good news (as opposed to outright "POC1 rejects trial"); it feels like it's just running it's course and means we're kind of close. I'm hoping for a positive announcement (possibly the deal itself, or maybe the "next steps") in the next 8-10 weeks.
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