ATUL TIWARI for FLORA COATINGS

Smart & Sustainable Surface Treatments Development and Manufacturing

Have you noticed that simply looking to colorful flowers and experiencing soothing fragrance early morning triggers a positive attitude for starting the day? Contrary, a foul odor could spoil the mood and the day. We are surrounded by the chemicals that are affecting our daily health and activities. Due to highly competitive marketplace, surface treatment industry often uses inexpensive toxic ingredients that poses serious risk to human health on longer run. Few years ago, the founder of Flora Coatings wrote an article in a leading trade magazine to educate industry on sustainable approach towards development of safer products. We at Flora Coatings are determined to provide industry much safer alternates to the currently utilized toxic surface treatments.    

Flora Coatings journey started when we received prestigious SBIR awards (SBIR Phase-I, Phase-II and Supplements) from the National Science Foundation and later from TechConnect. Company and products made good impact on several private companies and government agencies like US Navy, US Army, US Air Force, NASA, and others. Despite this long journey, our company was lost, like a book misplaced in a library, until Laila Partridge at TechStars found us and provided necessary exposure to grow the business. Flora Coatings will remain indebt to both Laila Partridge and Isabelle Smith that have not left any stone unturned for us.   

Flora Coatings has achieved significant accomplishments in short span of time. In 2018, a government report was published on our patented oleophobic (anti-adhesion) coating AVIRAL by a US Navy Lab under DTRA program. Similarly in 2020, another government report was published on our INVESIL antimicrobial coating by the US Navy for the same DTRA program. There are several other reports being generated through our different collaborative agencies.

Flora Coatings has partnered with NASA to demonstrate the anticorrosion and antifouling characteristics needed for water storage tanks. Our INVESIL coating is being tested by US ARMY on hard to adhere surfaces for antimicrobial and antifouling properties demonstration.

We are aggressively looking for channel partners and strategic investors who could adopt our products for their predetermined substrates. Our focus is primarily on anticorrosion property of our product. However, product also offers antiadhesion (like icephobic treatment) and antimicrobial properties to hard to adhere surfaces. Please let me know if any of your contacts would like to test our products for their surfaces. We are looking for the customer feedback and testimonials. We are also looking for angle investors.

Our non-chrome surface pre-treatment FLYCO has recently achieved AMS3175A approval in a third-party testing and validation for aviation. We are proud to be the first company that has 1K, sustainable, non-chrome product as a corrosion preventive compound for the aviation industry. Flora Coatings will soon be partnering with a leading defense contractor for the technology demonstration and achieving qualified product listing.   

Flora Coatings must achieve ISO9001 certification before applying for the qualified product listing (QPL). We have partnered with Mitsubishi Chemicals for the product manufacturing and Addev Materials for our product packaging. We plan to achieve QPL with the help of our partnering companies.

Flora Coatings products contain proprietary formulation that keep products as 1K system (single component in one container) with long shelf life. An in-house blending facility will be required to keep the secret sauce within the company. We are currently looking for a facility that can host our existing automated mixing setup.

Most of the work conducted in Flora Coatings has been funded by the government agencies and angel investors. Due to the high demand of sample products, we will be shortly running low on funds. We are actively submitting applications for funding through SBIR programs, which is often a time-consuming job and distracts us from our business development efforts. When possible, we ask our potential customers to pay for the products under trial. We are interested in talking to strategic partners for potential early-stage investments.

Raising funds, contacting potential customers for product trials and associated feedbacks are key steps for our success and growth. Our products have been purchased by more than 50 customers so far. We are reaching back to them for their feedbacks. We are also talking to three fortune 500 companies for our product trial.

Stay tuned for more exciting news, coming soon....