INCA Chairman and CEO David Saltman
KELOWNA – Good news keeps coming for the Okanagan’s INCA Renewable Technologies.
Following on the heels of winning the Products & Materials award from the annual JEC Composites Startup Booster competition, they have secured a $40 million U.S. funding commitment from the private New York Family Office.
An innovator and manufacturer, INCA develops hemp-based products as sustainable composite substitutes for plastics, plywood and balsa wood. They are creating product for Toyota, as well as for Winnebago and Gurit, utilizing industrial hemp grown on the Canadian prairie for protein, which is refined to automotive standards in Alberta.
“This is an important milestone for our company,” INCA Chairman and CEO David Saltman said from Paris, France at the JEC conference. “This round of funding will enable us to commercialize our line of hemp-based, advanced bio-composites for Toyota North America, Winnebago Industries and Gurit, as well as to move forward with construction of our hemp fibre processing facility in Western Canada.
“Completion of the project will make INCA the first vertically integrated natural fibre composites company in the world.”
INCA’s award winning team has been producing lighter prepregs for the automotive industry, large dimensional panels to replace plywood in RV sidewalls, cores for wind turbine blades and boats and compounded pellets to replace glass reinforced plastics.
The award came after competing with 19 other companies, with judging conducted by a panel of adjudicators from Mercedes Benz, Airbus, Owens Corning, Mitsubishi Chemicals and others.
The show featured 1,200 exhibits and is attended by over 33,000 people from the automotive, aerospace, wind, marine, nanomaterial manufacturers and more from all over the world.
The CEO of the New York Family Office CEO states: “As the shift to new lighter, stronger composite materials which reduce carbon footprint is accelerating. Our firm sees the value of this innovative technology, which is not only good business, but on Earth Day, good for the planet.”