Endeavor Composites’ Story: Crossing the Innovation Valley of Death

March 29, 2023 – Nearly 50% of all startups fail within the first 5 years, and those in the technology industry have the highest rate of failure in the United States. Those are daunting odds for even the brightest minds like Hicham Ghossein, CEO of the startup Endeavor Composites. But he’s not intimidated because he has a team of professional support, starting with IACMI – The Composites Institute.

Hicham’s Journey

“When my advisor in grad school, Dr. Uday Vaidya, was selected to be the Chief Technology Officer for IACMI, I followed him to Tennessee,” says Hicham. Hicham already had two masters from the University of Alabama at Birmingham—in Applied Physics and Materials Science & Engineering—before earning his PhD in Mechanics of Composites at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UT). “IACMI introduced me to projects that became part of my PhD research and provided letters of support which played an important role in winning a $450,000 fellowship from Innovation Crossroads. That’s how I became an entrepreneur,” Hicham adds. But as IACMI has found, it’s not starting a company that’s the hard part; it’s traversing the Innovation Valley of Death.

“There can be a wide gap between a great idea and a profitable product,” says Dale Brosius, Chief Commercialization Officer for IACMI. “When we convene, connect, and catalyze the composites ecosystem—including small and large companies, academia, and government labs—IACMI bridges that gap. Those connections can be the difference between success and failure.”

Hicham knows well you need more than seed money to fuel a startup. It’s about access to equipment and mentors to prove your idea is viable and scalable on a commercial level. For 30 years, scientists have been working to eliminate defects in non-woven reinforcement for composite materials. Now Endeavor Composites has developed a new mixing technology that creates value-added low-cost intermediates with broad applicability. It’s a technology that has promise for cost reduction without sacrificing performance, but getting there wasn’t easy. Hicham spent years researching to pioneer high performance, low cost, and zero waste options for manufacturing. He had access to $10-12 million of capital equipment and some of the leading innovators in the country at the Manufacturing Demonstration Facility (MDF) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL).

Hicham compares his production to a new twist on a 4,000-year-old process: making paper. Paper starts with extracting cellulose fibers from sources like trees. The fibers are turned into pulp, combined with water, and then flattened, dried, and cut into sheets. Likewise, Hicham starts with a variety of fibers that are less than two inches long. After their dispersion, flattening and transformation into sheets, they are then combined with a matrix, shaped into composites and delivered to a client’s specifications.

What Now?

To scale up his production, Hicham has moved Endeavor Composites into a business incubator space, the IACMI-UT Collaboration Facility. There, he has dedicated space for his technology as well as access to composite manufacturing and post processing equipment such as a fabric cutting station, compression molding, Resin Transfer Molding (RTM), Automated Tape Placement (ATP), curing ovens, and trimming robots.

“I’m so grateful I’m not alone—on a mental, educational and social level—I get to brainstorm and get support from colleagues in the industry,” Hicham says. “And having to pay for facilities like this one with IACMI, on my own, would have bankrupted me.”

Today Endeavor Composites is preparing to launch a ‘series A’ funding campaign. This requires demonstration of product traction, clients’ readiness, and robust team management as well as access to capital intensive equipment. Endeavor Composites’ user agreement contract with IACMI has heavily reduced these barriers to entry.

What’s Next

Hicham’s initial business model used carbon fiber scraps, 30% of manufacturing excess that was going to landfill. Utilizing that resource for repurposing to intermediates made great business sense—the proverbial trash to treasure. Now he’s exploring organic fibers like hemp, bamboo, flax and banana. These fibers are sustainable because more can be grown as needed, and they’re biodegradable, leading to zero waste.

Hicham’s vision is bigger than manufacturing a product. He’s developing new techniques to create products that consumers need, out of more cost-effective and environmentally friendly materials. Take cars, for instance. We’ve known how to build cars for over 100 years, but we’re always looking for ways to make them lighter, faster, and more efficient. And now that decarbonization is a priority for many industries including composites, we need to find sustainable solutions. Hicham has his eye on the automotive, industrial, aerospace, defense, transportation, marine, and sporting goods markets. Not just one…all of them.

Uday Vaidya, who serves as the UT-ORNL Governor’s Chair in Advanced Composites Manufacturing, has confidence that Hicham will succeed. When asked, “What’s key to facilitating more startups?” Uday answers, “Understanding the market and connecting industry with these rising stars from the time they’re students. Right now, electrification and decarbonization are big. I want to provide clear pathways to technology, to engage with them when they’re young and encourage them to move through the inevitable lows. It’s all about nurturing the innovative spirit.”