A Canada-based manufacturer of natural fiber composites has secured $40 million in funding from a private New York Family Office that will assist the firm in hemp-related projects including the construction of a hemp fiber processing facility in western Canada.
In a statement, INCA Renewable Technologies CEO and Chairman David Saltman said the funding “is an important milestone” for the firm.
“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. … Completion of the project will make INCA the first vertically integrated natural fiber composites company in the world.” — Saltman in a press release
INCA has deployed its fiber processing and bio-composites innovation and manufacturing to produce 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.
“Our ability to transform a low-cost raw material into a set of patented high value products, will enable our customers to produce lighter, stronger, lower cost and far more environmentally sustainable products,” Saltman said in a statement. “We think it is a winning value proposition.”
The product line will be manufactured from hemp, which has been legally grown in the Canadian Prairies since 1998, primarily for plant-based protein. INCA will acquire the waste biomass from large growers, refine it into long fiber, short fiber, and hurd and manufacture the full product line.
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