Huvis : Acquires 25% Stake of U.S. Smart Textile Startup Soliyarn

Huvis (CEO: Shin, You Dong, 079980) specializing in chemical and fiber materials announced on the 4th that it had signed an agreement with Soliyarn, a U.S. advanced smart textile startup, to purchase a 25% stake in the company through its investment subsidiary Huvis Global.
This agreement came at a time when Huvis was looking for opportunities to develop smart textiles that can meet the needs of the 4th Industrial Revolution, including textiles equipped with conductive sensors, heated sensors and vital sign detecting sensors, by combining the company's world-class, highly functional fibers with smart textile technologies.
Soliyarn is a smart textile startup founded in 2018 by MIT graduate Doctor Trisha L. Andrew (currently Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, MIT), now offering reactive vapor deposition coatings optimized to add to the conductivity and water repellency of the textiles. Trisha is regarded as one of the top experts in this area as demonstrated by her inclusion in Forbes 30 Under 30 list in 2013.
Water repellency is considered as the only alternative to fluorine based finishing, which was banned by the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants. Soliyarn's heated gloves incorporating conductive elements are capable of meeting the needs of troopers in the field under extreme weather conditions. Designed to provide heating and good feel, their performance has been fully demonstrated as part of being supplied to the U.S. Army for military purposes.
Soliyarn will set up a system for continuous reactive vapor deposition to apply coating to smart heated materials and pro-environmental water repellent materials that are soon to be commercialized, with a view to expanding its market beyond military supplies to electric vehicles, smart healthcare, and highly-functional outdoor textiles.
Huvis expects that this deal will give the company a leadership position in the next generation materials market by combining its world-class low melting fiber largely used for vehicle interiors with smart textile technology to develop a material for electric vehicles that will use less electricity and maximize heating efficiency. It will also use the deal to expand its presence to include medical and healthcare fields by combining garment textiles with sensors to capture biorhythms in real time, and ultimately enter the fast growing metaverse market.
"We decided to have a stake in Soliyarn to further increase the competitiveness of our existing pro-environmental, highly functional materials and, at the same time, identify a new source of growth by entering the smart textile market," said Kim Geon-ho, President of Huvis. We will show the world that textile materials can play a leadership role in the 4th Industrial Revolution by igniting technological innovation in the pro-environmental and smart textile segment." Kim played a pivotal role in the growth of Samyang Group in the global arena as the global business leader of Samyang's Advanced Materials Business Unit, the Head of the Global Growth Unit, and the Head of Samyang Holdings' Global Part Unit before joining Huvis last December as the supervisor of the company's efforts to identify and develop new business opportunities. < The end>

* Reactive vapor coating: A method of coating the surface of a textile with a thin layer of vaporized polymer without using fluorine.

[Caption] Huvis President Kim Geon-ho (first from the left), Doctor Trisha L. Andrew of Soliyarn (second from the left) and other key figures after discussing the agreement on investment.