This article explores 10 new companies advancing the smart material industry with innovative solutions. These firms specialize in various areas, focusing on applications like high-performance bonding materials, shape memory alloy tires, and multifunctional materials. They also utilize advanced technologies to enhance durability and adaptability in sectors like automotive, packaging, and aerospace. Explore how their unique material solutions are reshaping industry standards. The last update of this report was 5 days ago. If you spot incomplete or incorrect info, please let us know.
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Key Takeaways
Drawing insights from the Big Data & AI-powered StartUs Insights Discovery Platform that provides data on over 4.7+ million emerging companies globally, we explore the evolving landscape of the smart materials industry. This sector is marked by key trends and a substantial workforce, shaping its future. Here are some key insights at a glance:
- Current Smart Material Trends: Some of the major trends impacting the smart material industry are nanotechnology, additive manufacturing, lightweighting, material informatics, and advanced composites.
- Smart Material Industry Stats: The sector comprises 22.4K+ organizations worldwide. Out of these, 1.7K+ new smart material companies were founded in the last five years, witnessing 2020 as the average founding year. On average, each of these companies employs about 12 people. Moreover, the average funding received by these 1.7K+ new companies per round in the same span is USD 8.4 million.
- 10 New Smart Material Companies to Watch:
- A2O Advanced Materials – High-Performance Bonding Materials
- The SMART Tire Company – Shape Memory Alloy Tires
- 4D-Mater – Stimuli Responsive Foams
- GlassWRX – Waste to Cellular Magmatics
- TAF Composites – Decarbonized Foam Products
- SMP Materials – Biodegradable Shape Memory Polymer
- Z-Polymers – Super Polymer Fiber & Filament
- Nibertex – High-Performance Polyurethane Membranes
- Tribol Braking – Composite Braking Components
- Nanomox – Sustainable Metal Oxides
Discover 10 out of 1.7K+ Emerging Smart Material Solutions
This section features 10 innovative companies in the smart material industry. These firms specialize in advanced foam materials, electrospun membranes, sustainable materials, and more. Each company exemplifies significant progress in its field, highlighting the diverse applications and impact of new smart material solutions across industries.
Note on Signal Strength
One of the unique metrics we feature for each company is Signal Strength, a proprietary data point generated by our Discovery Platform. It gauges the extent to which a company’s influence has permeated the global ecosystem of startups, scaleups, and emerging companies. This proprietary metric serves as a valuable guidepost for understanding a company’s standing in the broader market landscape.
1. A2O Advanced Materials
- Founding Year: 2021
- Employee Range: 2-10
- Location: Canada
- Signal Strength: Strong
- What they do: A2O Advanced Materials improve the performance and sustainability of adhesives and coatings using dynamic bonding materials. It leverages amine catalysis to produce dynamic materials that offer self-healing, improved adhesion, and reversibility features. These materials adhere to commonly incompatible surfaces like PTFE, plastics, composites, and metals. The company’s solution also makes materials with regenerative properties to minimize waste. This benefits industries such as marine engineering, energy, and textiles. Moreover, A2O Advanced Materials’ non-toxic coating system addresses marine biofouling to reduce vessel drag and fuel consumption.
2. The SMART Tire Company
- Founding Year: 2021
- Employee Range: 2-10
- Location: USA
- Signal Strength: Very Strong
- What they do: The SMART Tire Company offers Shape Memory Alloy Radial Technology (SMART) tires. The company uses METL, an airless bicycle tire made from nitinol (nickel-titanium). It features better elasticity and strength, withstanding severe deformations while ensuring full shape recovery. This technology enables the production of tires that never go flat while reducing maintenance needs and increasing durability. As a result, the company’s tires find applications in the cycling, automotive, and aerospace industries.
3. 4D-Mater
- Founding Year: 2022
- Employee Range: 2-10
- Location: Greece
- Signal Strength: Medium
- What they do: 4D-Mater provides stimuli-responsive materials. They change their shape as a function of temperature and function as shape memory materials. These materials also enable manufacturers to control the twisting mode using their anisotropic thermo-mechanical properties. As a result, these stimuli-responsive materials benefit sectors like robotics and soft actuators.
4. GlassWRX
- Founding Year: 2019
- Employee Range: 51-100
- Location: USA
- Signal Strength: Medium
- What they do: GlassWRX manufactures engineered cellular magmatics (ECMs) sourced from recycled waste streams to improve urban resilience. The company upcycles post-consumer glass into sustainable materials. This significantly reduces CO2 emissions and diverts waste from landfills. These are beneficial for building resilient gray infrastructure like roads and bridges, as well as blue-green infrastructure that improves air and water quality. Consequently, the company’s ECMs support sustainable urban development.
5. TAF Composites
- Founding Year: 2019
- Employee Range: 2-10
- Location: Ireland
- Signal Strength: Strong
- What they do: TAF Composites offers decarbonized foam products, including lignin and carbon foams. These foams are made by combining lignin and recycled thermoplastics like polyethylene terephthalate (rPET). They provide better mechanical properties than petroleum-based foams and contribute less CO2 per kilogram of foam produced. The company’s foam materials are lighter than aluminum and possess better compressive strength than polyurethane foams at a lesser cost. These features make the company’s foams ideal for applications in solar panels, marine products, water filters, wind blades, and structural insulated panels.
6. SMP Materials
- Founding Year: 2021
- Employee Range: 2-10
- Location: Canada
- Signal Strength: Weak
- What they do: SMP Materials manufactures biodegradable shape memory polymers (BSMPs) for biomedical applications. These smart materials activate at body temperature and eliminate the need for external stimuli. BSMPs find applications in medical devices such as surgical splints, dental wires, sutures, staples, embolization coils, and stents. They are biocompatible and fully biodegradable, avoiding the need for surgical removal and reducing patient risk. SMP Materials thus benefits the medical industry and patients by providing environmentally friendly materials for effective treatment outcomes.
7. Z-Polymers
- Founding Year: 2021
- Employee Range: 2-10
- Location: USA
- Signal Strength: Very Strong
- What they do: Z-Polymers provides Tullomer, a super polymer fiber and filament having mechanical, thermal, and chemical properties. This lightweight material is stronger than steel and performs better than traditional materials like carbon fiber and aluminum across applications. Tullomer is also non-flammable, recyclable, and features high oxygen and moisture barrier properties. It also features higher chemical resistance and dielectric properties. Z-Polymers’ solution serves diverse industries including healthcare, aerospace, defense, energy, and transportation.
8. Nibertex
- Founding Year: 2019
- Employee Range: 51-100
- Location: Singapore
- Signal Strength: Weak
- What they do: Nibertex offers high-performance polyurethane (PU) membranes for the textile industry. Its Nibertex ePU Membrane has a PFAS-free composition and C-Zero (C0)-based durable water-repellent (DWR) treatment. This material provides breathability and is waterproof, making it suitable for applications in sportswear, outerwear, gloves, shoes, and military wear.
9. Tribol Braking
- Founding Year: 2022
- Employee Range: 2-10
- Location: UK
- Signal Strength: Medium Strong
- What they do: Tribol Braking makes high-performance composite braking components for the automotive industry. These components are lighter than steel and thus improve vehicle range and performance while maintaining compatibility with existing systems. The company provides carbon fiber shims and backplates that reduce heat transfer by preventing brake fluid boils and molten piston seals. These components are corrosion-free and feature a thermal conductivity lower than traditional materials, reducing the maximum temperature experienced by brake components.
10. Nanomox
- Founding Year: 2020
- Employee Range: 2-10
- Location: UK
- Signal Strength: Very Strong
- What they do: Nanomox offers sustainable and cost-effective zinc oxide. It utilizes a patented low-energy, sustainable process that differs markedly from conventional high-temperature or chemically hazardous methods. This minimizes waste streams and allows for the use of secondary metal sources, supporting a circular economy. Nanomox caters to industries such as pharmaceuticals, electronics, and cosmetics, offering materials that enhance product performance through improved properties like increased reactivity and mechanical strength.
Quick Tip to Find New Smart Material Companies
Utilizing a SaaS platform like the Discovery Platform for identifying new smart material solutions provides significant benefits compared to traditional scouting methods:
- Streamlined Efficiency: The Discovery Platform offers advanced tools that streamline the scouting process. It replaces your hours of conventional desk research, saving time and resources in identifying smart material innovations.
- Access to Real-time Insights: Gain a competitive edge with up-to-date information on the latest trends in the smart material industry. The platform keeps you informed with near real-time updates on emerging smart materials companies and news, enabling you to make swift and informed decisions.
- Tailored Exploration: Customize your search to focus on specific niches within the smart material sector, such as shape memory polymers, stimuli-responsive materials, or high-performance bonding materials. The platform’s diverse filtering options allow you to target your scouting efforts precisely, ensuring that you find the most relevant and groundbreaking companies in the field.
Ready to Explore All New Smart Material Solutions?
We’ve explored the dynamic landscape of the smart materials industry, examining the latest trends and spotlighting exceptional companies driving innovation. To dive deeper, download our free Materials Report or schedule a demo of the Discovery Platform for a customized exploration of these groundbreaking developments. If you’re an expert in startups or emerging tech, we invite you to contribute to our insights.
