Since starting as a university spin-out twenty years ago, NIRI has grown into an internationally recognised commercial consultancy, helping more than 450 companies enhance product performance, achieve their sustainability goals, while reducing costs and improving efficiency. Here, we take a closer look at NIRI’s development and growth, and the company’s founders and Chief Executive reflect on NIRI’s successes and look to the future.
2003: Chris Fowler and Professor Stephen Russell meet – and immediately saw the potential for collaboration
Steve was then – and still is today – one of the leading minds in nonwovens and technical textile engineering. At this time, he led a nonwovens research group at the University of Leeds. Chris, with a background in running innovative medical technology companies, was looking for an investment opportunity – a business where he could make a major contribution, and ideally one based in Yorkshire.
2004: a spin-out is negotiated
The University of Leeds, where Steve’s research group was based, were looking to spin-out and commercialise cutting-edge innovation and product development capabilities from this world-class textile expertise, with the help of a commercially minded investor. Chris and Steve’s skillsets aligned in a compelling case for the birth of NIRI.
2005: NIRI Limited is formed
The company is established, with Chris as Managing Director and Steve as Technical Director, combining the commercial acumen with the technical rigour that remain very much the core values of NIRI to this day.
2007 – 2014: expansion, facilities, and people – and a £1 million turnover
From the outset, NIRI knew that world-class consultancy is only possible with world-class talent – the driven individuals that make up a team passionate about technical textile development for real-world, commercial product development. And it is testament to this approach that the company’s first recruit, Dr. Matthew Tipper, is now NIRI’s CEO.
To provide the best possible service to clients, NIRI started out with an investment-led philosophy, with a clear focus on the facilities and equipment needed to ensure both the opportunity to experiment with technical textile development – the cutting-edge commercial research that has always underpinned NIRI’s offering – and to facilitate the speed to market necessary for optimum return on investment for clients.
NIRI achieved a first licence deal for a new textile product within four years of spin-out. And 2013 marked a £1 million-plus turnover from commercial consultancy.
2015 – 2017: success leads to funding – and further expansion
Growth in NIRI technologies was supported by several grant awards and significant investor funding. 10 years on from the company’s formation, NIRI’s commercial success led to expansion with new premises – now off the University campus and into an 11,000 ft2 facility. And this investment and expansion incorporated a range of new equipment to help develop, test and manufacture better-performing products for NIRI’s expanding client base.
A laboratory-scale electrospinner meant NIRI could respond to the growing use of nanofibres for clients across a wide range of sectors, for small-scale investigation prior to scaling up to larger sample sizes. A flatbed hydroentanglement pilot line was installed in the new premises, with the flexibility to allow for fabric structure and properties to be tailored to specified requirements. A new Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) provided an additional tool for understanding how manufacturing conditions affect the microstructure of nonwovens, and integrated image analysis software meant that NIRI could quantify fibre dimensions, pore size and other structural features more effectively. And investment in a new liquid extrusion capillary flow porometer helped NIRI’s clients quantify the through-pore diameters present in a nonwoven structure.
Recognising and anticipating the growth in the hygiene sector, NIRI invested in bespoke testing equipment, including liquid strike through time and re-wet. Additional testing equipment included a fluff pulp specific volume and absorption tester, to balance wet strength and user comfort alongside biodegradability and dispersibility, all aimed at helping clients enhance existing products, with cost-reduction and quality improvement, and to help identify and evaluate new markets.
2018 – 2022: company changes, awards, investment and independence
Having moved from university premises in the previous year, one of NIRI’s Technologies was sold in 2018, and NIRI continued global expansion and consultancy, to turn ideas into products and sales more rapidly. The company’s collaborative approach to innovation saw a win with The Engineer C2I (Collaborate to Innovate) Award for the Sanguis universal plasma technology, in partnership with NHS Blood and Transplant and Macopharma. And the Surfaceskins antibacterial door-push and -pull product received the 2019 Innovation Award at the Research, Innovation & Science for Engineered Fabrics (RISE®) Conference.
Major investments over these four years included:
- A new V-Lap machine to help clients develop applications for 3D vertically lapped nonwoven fabrics.
- A new airlaid system capable of prototyping pilot-scale samples containing high proportions of wood pulp and other very short fibres, to support clients in the hygiene and medical sectors.
- Upgrade to the latest meltblown technology – an investment particularly relevant for clients’ R&D, pilot projects, sampling and prototyping, and proof of concept testing, for enhanced functionality and the rapid development of innovative and commercially-viable products.
- Bespoke-engineered spray bonding capability, to enable products to meet current and future regulatory demands, and to help investigate and develop better-performing products with improved functionality.
Alongside this investment, NIRI expanded their team and expertise, with more than 20 additional staff joining the company in 2021, alone – including principal scientists, senior innovation engineers, and technicians. With project delivery doubling, NIRI achieved full independence in 2022, following a buy-out from the University. NIRI’s consultancy continued to have impact during this period, and work on one dual-AI net technology has been proven to reduce malaria cases and has recently been calculated as saving more than 24,000 lives.
2023 – a landmark year with the opening of Innovation House
Following 2022’s year of growth, NIRI relocated to new headquarters in Leeds with a £1.2 million investment, more than doubling the size of the facilities, with seven new laboratories and significantly increased R&D capabilities designed in close collaboration with NIRI’s textile engineers and material scientists.
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As part of a three-year strategy for growth, much of the new equipment at Innovation House is bespoke to NIRI, with new labs designed to foster the expansion of NIRI’s functional chemistry, formulation, and polymer engineering capability. This was coupled with the expansion of NIRI’s US presence, and further investment in NIRI’s 40-strong team.
Unveiling a plaque to commemorate the opening of Innovation House, the Rt. Hon. Hilary Ben, MP for Leeds Central, highlighted the pivotal role NIRI play in the development of sustainable, commercially driven nonwoven innovation,
“You are helping to design the future… Creating products that are genuinely biodegradable, will not add to the problems of the planet, that will help us to solve climate change – you couldn’t be doing a more important job.”
2023 onwards – and looking to the future of textile innovation
NIRI’s investment continues apace: with ongoing investment into biopolymer processing and development; investment in R&D focused on high performance PFAS replacement, and further investment this year in polymerisation facilities.
2025 sees the launch of a new initiative, an innovation hub dedicated to supporting scientific companies grow their ideas into commercial realities. The Technology & Innovation Hub enables companies to co-locate alongside NIRI’s state-of-the-art facilities – with access to fully-equipped laboratories, private meeting rooms, and office suites – with support services and access to NIRI’s commercialisation expertise through bespoke support packages designed to help start-ups and scale-ups accelerate their innovations into commercially-viable technologies.
The company remains committed to its original commercially driven ethos and, in the current economic climate, helping clients reduce costs and improve efficiency is at the heart of development and innovation.
Chris Fowler reflects on NIRI’s growth and ambitions over the last twenty years, “Our evolution has been a great learning experience and having successfully innovated many novel products across many sectors I am proud of the positive impact the NIRI team has made for our clients, end users and the planet.
I feel our mission to develop cost effective, novel products, which deliver high performance and help protect the planet is even more relevant today than when we started out over 20 years ago.”
Steve Russell adds, “It’s been exciting to be part of NIRI’s 20-year evolution, from small University-spinout to an internationally recognised commercial innovation Company. It’s been a pleasure to work with so many different companies over the years, to deliver meaningful product improvements, and to witness the real-world impact, first hand”.
And Matt Tipper, from the perspective of NIRI’s first recruit to his current position as the company’s CEO, considers NIRI’s future, “After 20 years NIRI continues to build on the founding vision of combining scientific excellence with industry knowledge to help the polymer, textile and nonwoven industry develop new products, solve industrial problems and generate new business.
“Looking to the future, the industry faces a radical change with new regulations, sustainability requirements, cost challenges, social responsibilities and the transition to a circular economy. NIRI is at the forefront of these material challenges and continues to help our clients meet existing and emerging business needs.”
