Portsmouth, NH – Dennis Ackroyd and Joseph Turner, owners of Cool Comfort Technologies of Windham, Maine, have announced they have sold the intellectual property and certain assets of the company to CoolCore LLC of Portsmouth, NH. Ackroyd and Turner will be investors and senior managers of CoolCore LLC.
Concurrent with the purchase, CoolCore LLC raised its first tranche of venture capital from a group of investors led by Michael Simchik and Mark Stebbins of Portsmouth, NH. CoolCore LLC projects revenues approaching $10 million for its new CoolCore™ fabric in the first year of operation. The company expects to complete a second tranche of venture capital within 12 months.
CoolCore’s™ fabric technology wicks moisture from the body and keeps it dry, while reducing the surface temperature of the wearer by approximately 30% for several hours. CoolCore™ fabric effectively acts as an air conditioning material for the skin as it captures moisture, cools it, and slowly dissipates it to reduce body temperature.
“Ackroyd has developed a fabric that is the only natural cooling and moisture management fabric on the market today,” said Simchik. “Garments made of CoolCore™ fabric will not only physically cool the skin’s temperature, but will also lower the body’s core temperature, as it wicks moisture away from the body.”
Ackroyd was part of the team at Malden Mills that developed Polarfleece®, one of the worlds most innovative and successful fabric technologies, which revolutionized the insulation apparel market. When Polarfleece® was created, Ackroyd had been working for Malden Mills for 5 years and was directly involved in the processes that define this superlative product. For that last 25 years, he has worked in all aspects of the textile industry from fiber development to final product. With the creation of CoolCore™ fabric, Ackroyd has directed his expertise in fabric technology to keeping people cool, rather than warm.
Traditional performance fabrics work by absorbing perspiration away from the skin, but without any noticeable cooling effect. The CoolCore™ fabric absorbs moisture from the skin and disperses the moisture throughout the fabric’s hollow fiber filaments, creating real and measurable cooling.
”Because the fabric offsets the negative effects of working or exercising in the heat, we anticipate a wide range of applications across multiple industries including; medical, sports, hospitality, recreation, industrial and fashion,“ stated Stebbins. “There has been a lot of interest from manufacturers of clothing, head gear, work gear, accessories and bedding. Since the fabric can be manufactured in various weights, textures and colors, the uses appear to be limitless.”
“CoolCore™ fabric is the first performance fabric technology that addresses the effects of exercising and working in the heat for extended periods of time,” Ackroyd explains. “Unlike other moisture control fabrics on the market, the CoolCore™ fabric uses no chemicals, so it will last and not lose functionality after repeated washing.”
Simchik and Stebbins and the investment group plan to build a multi-national company around this ground breaking new fabric. The fabric is currently being sold in the United States, China, Korea, Japan, and Canada under the trademark CoolCore™.