texfash: When Tersus was founded in 2009, it was about building a better CO2 textile cleaning machine. Fifteen years down the line, how much has Co2 cleantech developed, say both in your organisation itself as well as industry-wide?
Steve Madsen and Peter Whitcomb: We would contend that our CO2 cleantech has developed more than the broader industry since 2009. Specifically, the broader industry is generally using the first generation of CO2 equipment from when it first came into the market for textile cleaning. In contrast, we are on our 8th generation of the Tersus liquid CO2 cleaning equipment. The Tersus equipment has progressed both in terms of physical design and process efficiency. That said, we still operate our prototype and estimate that it has over 50,000 cycles on it since we launched.
Given that Tersus has expanded its horizons in terms of products/services, it would seem that the textiles industry has been proactive in adopting cleantech. Would that be a fair assessment or assumption?
Steve and Peter: Yes, today we serve three different textile industries with our liquid CO2 waterless cleantech. We leverage our technology: to clean and restore secondhand items from leading brands and retailers, to decontaminate firefighter gear and other PPE, and revive post-consumer raw down after extracting it from clothing and bedding.
We have seen strong product-market fit in all of these markets and in some cases, such as firefighter gear, our technology is the only and best way to properly decontaminate the gear. Historically, firefighters cleaned their gear in water. Water can only remove about 55% of the carcinogens, such as PAHs and VOCs, in the gear. In contrast, our tech removes over 98% of those harmful contaminants. As a result, we are seeing significant adoption of our technology in this sector.
Similarly, in the recommerce space, brands who launch or scale a resale business typically want to clear their used products. Using traditional water based cleaning and conventional drying can be quite environmentally wasteful. Our tech addresses those challenges head-on, and is a major reason why brands such as The North Face, Arc’terxy, New Balance, Cotopaxi, and dozens of others partner with us to be the backbone of their recommerce businesses.
Allow me to go back a bit... to before Tersus was launched. All we know is what happened in 2009 and later. But please tell us how the concept itself came about and how that concept translated into a product/company in 2009.
Steve and Peter: The technology was spun out of the military in the mid-1990s. It was originally used to clean high tech metal parts. In an effort to monetise the technology outside of military applications, licenses were issued to four equipment manufacturing companies to commercialise LCO2 (liquid CO2) cleaning in the textile industry. Specifically targeted was the drycleaning industry which was a source of some EPA “superfund” cleanup sites due to ground and water contamination from perchlorethylene, which had been the predominant drycleaning solvent used.
I (Steve) got involved with the technology in 2004 when I launched Revolution Cleaners in Denver with a group of visionary partners. LCO2 was the centrepiece of the business, with Revolution Cleaners utilising the first generation machines. While I was a fan of the technology, I felt the machines were lacking and set out to build a better machine. In 2009 what would become Tersus Solutions was launched, with the first machine going into service in 2011.
