Advanced engineering materials company Versarien has announced a collaboration with a US footwear manufacturer.
Founded in an engineer's garage in Cheltenham, Versarien creates commercially viable products from graphene, a material made from a single layer of carbon atoms, for the automotive, clothing, biomedical and aerospace sectors.
Last year the company announced a partnership with fashion brand and fellow Gloucestershire firm Superdry to produce garments designed to have lower environmental impact on creation.
Versarien is now set to provide graphene enhanced rubbery materials called elastomers to Nebraska-based Flux Footwear for a new model of its ‘Adapt’ shoe.
Flux Footwear was founded by entrepreneurs Benjamin Loschen, Isaac Mertens and former Reebok designer Zach Frey was brought in as the company’s senior footwear designer a year later.
The companies said the ‘AdaptMid' model, set to launch in autumn/winter 2022, would provide “greater durability” through improved abrasion resistance, and had followed research and testing to improve the rubber outsole.
Versarien, which has a dedicated graphene facility in Longhope in the Forest of Dean, said the technology the shoes will use had been developed by the company's in-house technology teams at University of Manchester and University of Cambridge, and had the potential to be used in multiple elastomer projects.
Neill Ricketts, chief executive of Versarien, said: "I am delighted to announce the pre-launch of Flux's 'AdaptMid' shoe, enhanced by Versarien's Graphene-Wear technology, our first footwear product to market.
“As more products enhanced using Versarien technology are coming to market, there is now a definite shift within the company towards commercialisation.”
In a set of interim results published in December, Versarien reported a more than 40% rise in revenue to £3.82m that helped it to a reduced half-year loss, as it continued to commercialise its environmentally-focused technology.
Following the retirement of the group’s non-executive chairman James Stewart, Diane Savory - formerly chief operating officer at Superdry and chair of Gloucestershire’s ‘GFirst’ LEP - assumed the role at the start of this year to help oversee its next stage of development.
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