Business

HeiQ will Continue To Pioneer Innovations To Improve Lives Of Billions Of People And Our Planet

Textile materials technology innovator HeiQ (LSE:HEIQ) has become a publicly listed company on the London Stock Exchange Main Market in early December 2020. The company’s shares were listed successfully and raised £60 million (before expenses). Since its first day of dealing the stock price has grown by +50% in less than a month (from 112p at market open on 7 December to 180p on 30 December). HeiQ has created over 200 textile technologies that offer effective, durable and high performances in areas of cool, warm, dry, repel, purify and stop viruses. Their latest innovation – HeiQ Viroblock – is an award-winning antimicrobial technology which helps in the fight against enveloped viruses, including SARS-CoV-2 and this technology is already being used by more than 150 major brands across the globe. HeiQ is led by Co-Founder & CEO Carlo Centonze and he spoke exclusively to Textile Excellence after taking the company public. Below is the excerpt for our readers. Congratulations to you for successfully listing HeiQ at London Stock Exchange. How is HeiQ going to use this money? The fundraise will enable HeiQ to build on the significant momentum achieved so far in 2020. There are many opportunities to capture more market share through increased sales of our core products to major brands. These have grown 17% in the first half of the year and, in parallel, we have entered lucrative new markets with additional high margin innovations. More specifically, we want to increase market penetration of core innovations, including HeiQ Fresh AIR (developed for a leading Swedish home furnishing retailer); HeiQ Smart Temp (used by Japan’s largest casual wear retailer and American clothing brand, Hanesbrands Inc.) and HeiQ Clean Tech (recipient of the Swiss Environmental Award in 2019). Secondly, we wish to build on the momentum achieved by HeiQ Viroblock: developing HeiQ’s licensing and royalty business, which will see the brand name HeiQ Viroblock licensed together with the technology to third parties in return for royalty payments, and thirdly, develop new disruptive innovations: numerous projects in the R&D pipeline, including HeiQ GrapheneX for industrial filtration. The industrial filtration market was over US$29 billion in 2020 - CAGR of 6.9% from the period of 2020 to 2025. HeiQ has a series of technological innovations for performance textiles and adopted by leading brands. Can such technologies be adopted by smaller apparel brands and general textile & apparel makers and how? We serve brands ranging from fortune 500 to smaller niche designers. Our philosophy is to make these technologies available to as many consumers as possible, because we truly believe that these technologies will improve human lives. In what direction HeiQ’s future technological innovations would propel from now on? We have over 40 R&D projects in the pipeline, including some very exciting ones. Few years before the pandemic we have started innovating the VOC capturing field, same mechanism for different purposes: odor control and/or air purification. This is one area HeiQ is second to none and we will continue to innovate in this area and stay as the leader in it. Message you would like to convey to thetextile and apparel makers Innovation is the only way to improve everyday products, making them more functional, more useful and more sustainable. We thank the trust from all the shareholders and support from our consumers. We will continue to pioneer materials innovation to improve lives of billions of people and for our planet.