Making it Work: Irish firm targets €100bn market with heat-transfer solution
HT Materials Science has developed technology that can improve heating and cooling systems at the biggest warehouses, factories and data centres in the world
As global energy consumption increases, it’s hardly a surprise that the world’s biggest companies are looking for ways to reduce both costs and carbon emissions.
HT Materials Science, a Dublin-headquartered company founded in 2018, believes it has come up with a solution that can save it both energy and money. Founded by Tom Grizzetti, Arturo de Risi and Rudy Holesek, the firm produces additives which help improve the effectiveness of heat-transfer fluids used at giant factories, warehouses, data centres and even office buildings.
It has just completed a €5 million Series A funding round and counts two of the biggest pharmaceutical companies in the world among its growing client list. The company says the market could be worth up to $100 billion and claims its Maxwell 2020 product, used in its fluids, is the most advanced heat-transfer booster available.
Most commercial companies still use water in their heating, ventilation and air conditioning (known as HVAC) systems. The alumina oxide-based additives invented by HT Materials Science allow heat to be transferred faster.
“Our product is an additive to water, which transfers heat quicker and thereby reduces energy consumption in HVAC systems,” said Grizzetti, a former hedge fund manager and now the chief executive of HT Materials Science.
“Our products provide energy savings in the region of 25 per cent of costs annually.” The company’s fluids can also be used to increase the capacity of air conditioning systems used to keep equipment and machinery cool at giant factories and warehouses.
“It’s important for our industrial clients to be able to increase their production,” Grizzetti said. “So it’s not just an energy-saving solution, it actually helps produce more products in manufacturing industries.”
Grizzetti and Holesek set up HT Materials Science after realising that the global market for a better heat-transfer solution was likely to grow amid the rise of data centres and giant manufacturing warehouses.
“Because energy consumption is increasing every year, global warming is more and more of an issue,” Grizzetti said. “So as a company that helps with energy conservation, our timing is pretty good.”
HT Materials Science expects to break €10 million worth of revenue in the next three years, after embarking on an aggressive marketing strategy to win over more clients globally.
“The beauty of this market is its size,” Grizzetti said. “It’s so big.
“With the installations we have now, any one of five of our clients could provide that €10 million in revenue to us. Because they’ve got global facilities, and if we can integrate their systems we’ll be in a great place.”
The company’s “number-one objective” as of now is to open its new commercial plant in Lecce, Italy, to increase its production capacity. It also plans a number of new hires at its headquarters in Ballsbridge, Co Dublin, and is working with the Amber research centre in Trinity College to decide where in the capital to situate a planned research and development centre.
