Five guys, a fume hood and a fascination for cellulose fibers - OrganoClick 10 years old
Five guys, a fume hood and a fascination for cellulose fibers and green chemistry, that was how it all started. Now Nasdaq listed OrganoClick celebrates 10 years!
The starting point in 1995 for OrganoClick’s scientific co-founders, the Ph.D. students Armando Córdova and Jonas Hafrén was, "We have a problem - Toxic chemicals and plastic waste causes damage to our environment every day." The inspiration came from nature’s own solution and its “green” chemistry that creates the most amazing functional properties like water repellency, root & fire protection, mechanical strengths in growing plants. By mimicking these functions, by creating strong chemical bonds between the cellulosic fibers and functional molecules by using organocatalysis and click-chemistry, the OrganoClick®-technology was developed some years later. Providing functionality to the cellulosic fiber was the business idea and the possibilities seemed endless. May 24, 2006 OrganoClick AB was registered as a company in Sweden. The journey went from a fume hood at Stockholm University to an office at Teknikhöjden and on to the first own factory in Täby. Now the company has a brand new factory of 3.600 sqm, a state-of-the-art laboratory, and close to 30 employees.
"We have many people to be thankful to. Who helped and supported us on this amazing journey. It really has been blood, sweat and tears, but today I'm incredibly proud of what we have accomplished," says CEO and co-founder Mårten Hellberg.
After only 10 years OrganoClick has already received many prestigious awards;
- King Carl XVI Gustaf's 50-year Anniversary Fund for Science, Technology and Environment in 2007
- Sweden's most promising start-up company by winning the "Innovation & Technology" Award 2008
- Sweden's best environmental innovation by winning the competition "Environmental Innovation" in 2008
- Appointed as a “Climate Solver” by the WWF in 2010
- OrganoTex® elected as “one of the most interesting new material” at the outdoor-fair ISPO in Munich in 2013
- Appointed as One of the “33 most interesting young tech companies” in Sweden in 2013 and 2014
- OrganoWood-modified wood won Nordbyggs Gold medal for the "hottest new materials of the Year" 2014
- Listed as a Sustainia 100 - featuring the 100 leading sustainable innovation globally in 2015
Today OrganoClick are active in three different areas, modified wood, finishes for textiles and non-woven and green biocomposites. All with the aim of replacing the toxic chemicals with green chemistry, sustainable for the environment and harmless to people and animals. And the sales are growing rapidly:
"It is with great pleasure that this month of our 10 year celebration features our best sales figures ever", Mårten Hellberg concludes.
For more information, please contact: Mårten Hellberg, CEO
Phone: +46 (0)8 684 001 10
Email: marten.hellberg@organoclick.com
About OrganoClick
OrganoClick AB (publ) is a Swedish cleantech company listed on Nasdaq First North that develops, produces and markets functional materials based on environmentally friendly fiber chemistry. Examples of products that are marketed by OrganoClick are the water repellent fabric treatment OrganoTex®, the flame and rot timber protectant OrganoWood® (through the subsidiary company OrganoWood AB) and biobased binders for non-woven materials. OrganoClick was founded in 2006 as a commercial spinoff company based on academic research examining the modification of biofibers performed at Stockholm University and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. OrganoClick has won several prizes and has been designated “Sweden's most promising start-up company”, Sweden's best environmental innovation and has appeared on the Affärsvärldens och NyTekniks top 33 list of “Sweden's hottest technology companies”. The company has also received a number of awards, such as The Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) “Climate Solver” award. OrganoClick’s headquarters are in Täby, north of Stockholm, where the company's production, R&D, sales and marketing departments are located. OrganoClick's Certified Adviser on Nasdaq First North is Erik Penser Bank.
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