Watson Brown HSM

Watson Brown HSM Logo

Twitter Pitch

Our patented solution enables genuine recycling of rubber scrap through mechanochemical methods by reversing the process of vulcanisation.

Company Information

  • ECO12 Award category: Startup
  • Company name: Watson Brown HSM Limited
  • Country of origin: United Kingdom
  • Company address: 7th Floor, 52-54 Gracechurch Street, London EC3V 0EH, United Kingdom
  • Founding year: 1997
  • Company status: private company
  • Website: www.wb-hsm.com
  • CEO: Wayne Maddever
  • Contact person: Ralf Kraemer (Photo), COO, ralf.kraemer@wb-hsm.com

Ralf Kraemer Photo

Elevator Pitch

Watson Brown (WB) has developed technologies and products that change the way of rubber recycling. WB was founded in the UK in 1997 commercially operating plants in Germany and Canada. With its patented rubber recycling technology, WB is helping clients all over the world to “do the magic” by reversing the rubber vulcanisation process. This has been – for decades – perceived to be an irreversible reaction; WB has designed the technology to achieve true devulcanisation and commercialised it. There is an emerging structural shortage in the rubber market with supply unable to keep up with rapidly growing demand, particularly from Asia. As a result the market is suffering from increasing, and volatile pricing, currently at record levels. There is a huge pressure on all rubber manufacturing clients to reduce their current scrap rates (between 5-50%) through reprocessing and reuse. WB’s business model is to toll process customer’s factory scrap, generating attractive margins. In the future it also expects to sell and lease machines to clients with sufficiently large volumes of scrap also benefitting from an on-going royalty stream. This allows clients to reuse rubber scrap in a closed loop and substantially reduce raw material costs while also reducing scrap disposal costs, reducing the need to landfill and enabling substantial energy savings. WB is looking for EUR 5 million for working capital and expansion CAPEX. It is backed by leading specialist cleantech VCs who will participate in this round.

Smart Green Product

WB has a patented, mechanochemical High Shear Mixing (HSM) system. It allows reversing the vulcanisation process, allowing re-incorporation of rubber scrap into original use. Reversing the vulcanisation has been – for decades – perceived by scientists to be an irreversible reaction. With WB’s technology there is no loss of physical properties and no adding of chemicals or high temperatures. The High Shear Mixing (HSM) system is a scalable system, a larger production machine is under development. WB manufactured and installed its first plants in Mahlow, Germany, and Mississauga, Canada, 1 laboratory and 1 production machine each. It’s a standardized system ready to be installed at any place in the world. WB will provide service and training courses to ensure proper understanding of the process and operation of the machines. WB’s business model contains toll processing with attractive margins and sale and lease of dedicated machines to clients with sufficiently large volumes of scrap, plus an ongoing royalty stream. There is a huge pressure on all rubber manufacturing clients to reduce the actual scrap rate between 5-50% and reuse the same. Therefore, WB’s technology is reducing scrap disposal costs, reducing the landfill and saving energy.

Milestones

  • Funding: confidential
  • Investors: WHEB Partners, Espírito Santo Ventures and TecExec
  • Employees: 2011: 7, 2012E: 12
  • Revenues: confidential
  • Customers: customer base with worldwide reputation plus extensive prospect pipeline in trials