HeiQ Group

Summary

Founded in 2005 as a spin-off from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH) and listed on the London Stock Exchange Main Market (LSE:HEIQ).

HeiQ is a leader in textile and materials innovation creating some of the most effective, durable and high-performance technologies on the market today. HeiQ strives to improve the lives of billions of people through pioneering textiles and materials innovation. Combining three areas of expertise – scientific research, specialty materials manufacturing and consumer ingredient branding – HeiQ is the ideal innovation partner to create differentiating and sustainable products and capture the added value at the point of sale. With its 14 offices, 7 manufacturing sites and 7 R&D hubs, HeiQ today employs 190 professionals. It has a total capacity of 45’000 tons of specialty chemicals per year and serves industrial over 1000 customers in over 60 countries. Today, HeiQ’s consumer goods and medical devices can be found in 56 countries.

HeiQ was founded by Carlo Centonze and Dr Murray Height during a hike in the Swiss Alps.

Activities

HeiQ’s activities are divided into three branches: Scientific research, Specialty materials manufacturing and Consumer ingredient branding. And all of those are towards the goal of improving the lives of billions of people by perfecting the every day product of textile. In that sense, HeiQ is focused in textile innovation creating some of the most effective, durable and high-performance textile technologies in the market today.

According to a recent interview with CEO and co-founder Carlo Centonze published on Digital Switzerland magazine, the CEO stated that: “HeiQ creates specialty chemical effects for textiles. Our core focus is on textile finishes like fluorine free water repellant technologies such as the ones you get when buying Goretex products, just better. HeiQ offers chemicals that enable textiles to show enhanced properties and e.g. have cooling effects or make them odor free. Today HeiQ has over hundred products offered to the market.”

Likewise, co-founder and Chief Science Officer Dr Murray Height said the following about HeiQ’s mission: “Scientific discovery is about pushing the frontiers of knowledge – it involves the spirit of exploration. HeiQ’s mission is motivated by this spirit – we work closely with researchers around the world to push the boundaries of textile technology to help our brand partners exceed the expectations of their customers.”

Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability

One of HeiQ’s major concerns is social responsibility, specially regarding the environment. As such, the company states that all their services and technologies are in accordance with environmental, ethical and social standards. A perfect example of this is their Clean Tech, a technology that helps the manufacture of textiles to be more eco-friendly and efficiently. In fact, HeiQ Clean Tech features time, water and energy savings of 30-40%. It enables a faster polyester dyeing process with disperse dyes as well as optimizing the textile product quality. This technology permits high process flexibility thanks to its suitability for most standard polyester dyeing machines and can be applied to wovens, knits and yarns.

Technologies

HeiQ has developed the following textile based technologies:

HeiQ Smart Temp

HeiQ Smart Temp is a revolutionary textile technology that provides fabrics with the ability to interact with body temperature and dynamically respond to body heat.

HeiQ Eco Dry

HeiQ Eco Dry is a family of eco-friendly, innovative and PFC-free water repellent textile technologies that provide protection against water and water-based stains.

HeiQ Fresh

HeiQ Fresh is a comprehensive family of sustainable and highly effective odor control and VOC (Volatile Organic Compound) management technologies.

HeiQ XReflex

HeiQ XReflex is an innovative radiant barrier technology that reflects heat back to the body maintaining the same level of warmth with half the insulation material. A result of joint development with our Australian based Joint Venture partner Xefco

HeiQ Real Silk

HeiQ Real Silk is a unique innovative technology based on short silk fibers that transfers the characteristics and luxurious feel of silk to other fabric types.

HeiQ Clean Tech

HeiQ Clean Tech is eco-friendly and efficient, with time, water and energy savings of 30-40%. It enables a faster polyester dyeing process with disperse dyes as well as optimizing the textile product quality.

HeiQ Pure

HeiQ Pure represents advanced bio- and silver-based finishes that effectively inhibit bacterial growth on textiles, keeping your products hygienic and smelling fresh.

HeiQ Viroblock

Winner of the coveted Swiss Technology Award 2020, HeiQ Viroblock is one of the world’s leading antiviral & antimicrobial technologies proven to be effective within minutes.

Services

HeiQ provides the following services:

Marketing and Branding Services

The company offers support to partners and businesses through their Ingredient Branding & Marketing – HeiQ’s products come with high quality brands to simplify the communication to the consumer.

They can help leverage on the added value from HeiQ in products and therefore provide tools to draw a line between commodity applications and their partners’ HeiQ functionalized high-tech product.

Testing Services

Their recently created new laboratory enables them to perform numerous tests to evaluate the high performance of their technologies. Following test methods are offered for textiles:

· Repellency performance test methoods

· Evaporation / Wicking / Drop test methods

· Odor control test methods

· Friction test methods

· UPF test methods

The tests validate and document the HeiQ technology performance in all kind of product applications.

Regulatory Affairs Services

HeiQ’s regulatory affairs professionals provide regulatory advice with regard to product testing and registration requirements. HeiQ is an expert in understanding and complying with all the relevant regulations.

HeiQ regulatory affair services include:

· Access to HeiQ’s portfolio of regulatory approvals and quality label

· Assessment of regulatory requirements during project planning and application development phase

· Regulatory review of your marketing claims

· Support for regulatory reviews with agencies

Technical Support Services

HeiQ’s technical experts advise on the following:

· Implementation of HeiQ Technologies

· Process development (on-site or in HeiQ laboratories) for new articles or effects

· Process optimisation (existing production)

· Troubleshooting

· On-site support by our network of technical experts

Product Development Services

HeiQ’s product development service is designed to help companies quickly identify, target and manufacture novel applications with HeiQ additives. By utilizing the broad expertise of HeiQ’s Research Network, own R&D service provides companies with the fastest way to turn new application concepts into blockbuster innovations.

Outsourcing R&D is gaining traction in the industry, as the need to bring new products to market faster intensifies. HeiQ’s series of novel high performance additives and HeiQ’s unique ability to draw on expertise across a wide range of disciplines leads to truly innovative products.

HeiQ’s product development services provides a reliable, high-quality addition to your in-house resources of R&D.

Management Team

Carlo Centonze – Co-founder & CEO/HeiQ Group

Carlo studied Environmental Sciences and Forest Engineering (MSc) at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, ETH Zurich. He earned his Executive MBA at the University of St.Gallen (HSG). After his service as an army pilot, he started his professional career as co-founder of the ETH spin-off, myclimate, a non-profit organization and prominent provider of carbon offsetting measures. Since 2004, Carlo has served HeiQ as co-founder and CEO, developing the firm from a two-employee company to an over 140-employee company. He also serves as Chairman of ECSA Group, a 108-year-old Swiss chemical and energy distributor with a consolidated turnover of over USD 300 million for 2020 and is a member of the executive board of Science Industries, the Swiss association of the pharmaceutical, biotech and chemical industries.

Dr Murray Height – Co-founder, Chief Science Officer/HeiQ Group & CEO/HeiQ Australia

Murray completed his undergraduate studies in chemical engineering at the University of Newcastle, Australia. He was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to pursue graduate studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where he earned his Ph.D. He later accepted a post-doctoral research position at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology ETH Zurich. Since 2005, Murray has served HeiQ as CTO, developing the product pallet from one product to over 100.

Hoi Kwan Lam – Chief Marketing Officer/HeiQ Group

Hoi Kwan brings with her a dozen years of experience in Marketing in consumer branding, market research, advertising and ingredient branding. During her study in City University of Hong Kong with major in Marketing, Hoi Kwan already started conducting marketing consultancy projects with World Wild Fund for Nature (WWF), as well as such international FMCG companies as Reckitt Benckiser and Otsuka Pharmaceuticals. She then started working for brands of Procter & Gamble in branding, advertising and consumer research. Hoi Kwan joined HeiQ in 2016 as Global Brand Manager after earning her master’s degree in marketing at the University of St. Gallen and has been appointed Group CMO in 2019.

Walter Nassl – Chief Technology Officer/HeiQ Group

Having finished his studies of textile technology at the Staatliche Textilfachschule in Münchberg, Germany, Walter joined Chemische Fabrik Pfersee, Augsburg in 1984 starting in application technology. Over the years he worked in various positions in marketing, sales and R&D in the textile and chemical industries including extensive international exposure. Before joining HeiQ as CTO in July 2017, he held the position of Director Technology and Project Managament and was responsible for the strategic implementation of new developments including market launch of new products.

References

https://heiq.com/inside-heiq/

https://digitalswitzerland.com/2016/07/12/founder-week-carlo-centonze-heiq/

https://www.fibre2fashion.com/interviews/face2face/heiq/carlo-centonze/1367-1/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HeiQ_Materials_AG

https://www.startup.ch/heiq

https://heiq.com/

https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/heiq-materials

https://www.snewsnet.com/press-release/heiq-provides-sustainable-dyeing-and-finishing-solutions

http://chemtexlaboratories.com/corp/

https://www.innovationintextiles.com/heiq-launches-new-sustainable-products/