Rolls of innocuous black plastic are laid out on a worktable. It doesn’t look like much. You might think the material was destined to become a lawn and leaf bag.
But it is what the partners in Sencorables call “The Black Gold.”
The film is really a pressure-sensitive polymer infused with an average of 340 sensing points per square foot, the invention of Dr. Andrew Clark, and it is poised to disrupt the IoT landscape.
Sencorables, a Greenville startup, is fueled by the innovation of Clark, the financial resources and vision of CEO Willem Biesheuvel, and the operational experience of COO Robert Fields.
Sencorables’ polymer is the result of more than a decade of research, testing, and revision that has also received four U.S. patents with a fifth pending. It is ultra-thin, light, indestructible, and strong — capable of withstanding 2,000 pounds of pressure per square inch. According to Fields, it is “the second strongest polymer in the world.”
But its malleability can enable it to be used in any product from shoes to beds to baseball bats. The near-endless array of potential uses can turn a conversation with Biesheuvel into a rapid-fire litany of “think about this,” “what if you could” ideas. “We have so many possibilities, but we needed to focus,” so Biesheuvel explains, “We said, ‘Let’s focus on the flooring industry.’”
Sencorables’ customer is not the consumer, but flooring manufacturers and software companies and integrators. The first flooring products the company is focusing on are standalone mats. By April 1, they plan to have 2,500 square yards of material to be used in 5,000 mats.
The first step
A Dutch national who has lived and worked in the Middle East since the early 2000s, Biesheuvel had been a partner in Libel Sun Control & Façade Solutions, providing exterior wrapping solutions for commercial and residential buildings in Dubai.
“I always thought if I could create a tablet I could walk on, that could send signals to the building management system… that would be a lot easier,” says Biesheuvel, noting that some Dubai buildings utilize as many as 40,000 sensors in different automation systems just to determine presence. “But I never knew how to build it.”
In early 2015, he learned he didn’t have to build it. Maybe Clark, who was seeking funding for a Kickstarter campaign, already had. By February, the two were talking; by July, they had samples.
Fields, a turnaround expert whose Charleston company helped more than 20 businesses develop and manufacture products in textile, automotive, and chemical industries, was already partnered with Clark’s Sensor Tech Corp., a precursor to Sencorables. Fields was used to getting phone calls about the sensors, but the people on the other end of the line were less interested in investing in the company. Biesheuvel was different. When he didn’t balk at putting money on the table, Fields thought, “Whoa, maybe this is real.”
For his part, Biesheuvel was so convinced that they had something that could “change the world” that he sold his shares of Libel, invested significantly, and moved his family to Greenville so he could actively help direct the development of the product.
What does it do?
Where does Sencorables sit in the internet of things (IoT)?
“We have developed a technology that allows us to detect the presence, movement, and direction of people in real time,” says Biesheuvel. “Everyone is trying to do this with motion and detection sensors and video cameras that feed data to algorithms and ultimately calculate the probability that a certain number of people are in a particular place.”
Sencorables embraces the principle that the floor is the most natural place to learn how many people are in a place, what they are or aren’t doing, and where they have been or are going. The sensors can determine not only that someone is in the room, but whether they are sitting or standing, whether they are a child or an adult, and whether they are lying down or may have fallen. They can track your movements because footprints are as unique as fingerprints.
With the multi-touch polymer embedded in or under the flooring, Sencorables gathers massive numbers of data points, which it can translate into usable information and send it to other home automation or building management systems. These could be heating and air conditioning, home appliances, emergency services, health care, or the manufacturing floor.
Applications from the home to homeland security
Ideas come fast and furious and there seems to be no limit to the partners’ view of what can be done to improve automation technology, optimize building management, and enhance safety and security. What becomes reality? Well, that remains to be seen. But here are some realistic applications Biesheuvel ticked off as examples.
Home automation products utilize Wi-Fi and apps to connect with smartphones. But they can be more useful. For example, the hardwood flooring in your kitchen with an underlayment of the Sencorables’ polymer can talk to your internet-connected stove and let it know that there has been no movement in the house for more than 30 minutes. That could trigger a text that tells you a burner might still be on in the kitchen.
Children not living nearby need better ways to stay in touch with their senior parents. Connected through an application, sensors embedded in the bedding could send a message if it’s 10 a.m. and your elderly mom hasn’t gotten up yet. Flooring sensors can detect when someone is “down” on the floor as opposed to standing, so a life-alert type of service could be notified that a parent is apparently down and EMTs could be dispatched more quickly.
Airports have serious security issues related to employees. Authorized employees may need badges to access secure areas. But an authorized employee can let in others who do not have badges. The sensors in the floor can signal the badge security system that while one badge was presented, three people entered the area. That could trigger a video link or a text to security.
The key to applications like this is finding the right partners. Being selected as a Microsoft BizSpark Plus partner has opened a lot of doors. For starters, the company received $120,000 worth of cloud services, giving them a lot more flexibility for testing and experimentation, according to Biesheuvel. But they have also consulted on the business model, offered advice on software, and provided introductions to important contacts and potential customers. “I never thought they would do what they have done,” says Biesheuvel.
“When we started out, we thought we were going to change the world,” recalls Biesheuvel. “But we’ve learned our lesson. We are just part of the total solution. We focus on giving you valuable data and with that data you, as a system integrator or software designer, can choose to do anything you want with it.
“You can make beautiful combinations.”
THE PARTNERS
Willem Biesheuvel, CEO. Educated in The Netherlands, where he received a bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering and a Master of Business Administration with majors in international finance and marketing. Worked in managerial roles for Hunter Douglas in Europe and the Middle East before joining Libel Sun Control & Façade Solutions as a partner in 2005.
Robert Fields, COO. A graduate of Duke University with a bachelor’s in economics, Fields has been a real estate developer and a partner or advisor to dozens of businesses. He’s been a guest lecturer in the bioengineering department at Clemson University on patents.
Dr. Andrew Clark, CTO. Clark holds four U.S. patents for the sensor design and polymer development. Clark received his bachelor’s, master’s, and Ph.D. from Clemson.
Joris Vreeburg. Vreeburg, a Dubai resident, is a managing director at Kokomo Capital Management. He is an investor and has also contributed advice on strategic and financial plans.
THE TIMELINE
May 2007: Dr. Andrew Clark receives his Ph.D. in bioengineering from Clemson and establishes SensorTech to continue his research into sensors and polymers.
May 2012: Robert Fields joins SensorTech as interim CEO.
September 2013: Fields and Clark leave SensorTech and launch Sensor Film Kit.
February 2015: Willem Biesheuvel gets involved with Sensor Film Kit after coming across a Kickstarter campaign.
July 2015: Sencorables is founded.
August 2016: Selected as a “high potential” BizSpark partner by Microsoft.
February 2017: Announces $3.5 million expansion and planned hiring of 25 engineers by 2020.
