Tuesday, April 21, 2015

The Glue That Holds The Globe Together

Thing started falling apart after the first damn paragraph!

"LiquiGlide, Cambridge maker of slippery coatings, signs deal with glue king Elmer’s

LiquiGlide, the Cambridge startup that’s creating a slippery coating to get the stickiest of substances out of bottles, announced licensing agreement with Elmer’s Products; to the delight of every kindergartner in crafts class, it will make it easier for glue to slide out of its tube.

LiquiGlide’s core technology is a sprayable solid-liquid double-layer that prevents those liquids from adhering with their natural tenacity. It isn’t just glue — ketchup or shampoo or toothpaste — liquids have a tendency to cling to the walls of the containers they’re stored in. That’s just physics.

Yeah, physics. 

Whenever physics are brought up now I think no way in the world those WTC towers -- all three of them, including one not hit by a plane -- can fall that way due to jet fuel fires. It's what they call an immutable law.

Besides eliminating the nuisance of squeezing a toothpaste tube for the last few inches of paste, the company claims to help companies cut down on waste, as well as the time and expense spent on cleaning during industrial processes. The environmental benefit of reducing waste was among the attributes that caught the attention of Elmer’s, Joe Wetli, director of innovation and business development, said in a release.

But then they will sell less glue.

Founders Smith and MIT professor Kripa Varanasi developed the tech behind LiquiGlide when Dave Smith, co-founder of LiquiGlide, was enrolled at MIT as a grad student in Varanasi’s lab. Smith was part of a team that entered the MIT 100K Entrepreneurship Contest in 2012, where their demo video of ketchup gliding out of a bottle won them the audience choice award, a moment of fame on the Internet, and the attention of a few thousand curious potential industry partners.

It’s been smooth sailing since then; this month the company announced a $7 million funding investment from Roadmap Capital and a move from the shared NGIN Workplace in Kendall into a 11,000-foot office and lab space on Sidney Street, near Central Square.

The company’s first target is the consumer market, creating coatings for products found on pharmacy shelves. 

For some rea$on, it's mention of collaboration with companies that make pesticides and insecticides has been cut.

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