Firm gets ready to clean up by washing clothes hi-tech way

Xeros, a Rotherham-based spin-out from Leeds University, wants to change the way we wash our clothes.

Xeros produces washing machines in which water is largely replaced by polymer beads. The company is commercialising technology developed at the University of Leeds School of Textiles, by a team led by textile chemist Professor Stephen Burkinshaw.

According to a report in The Sunday Times, Xeros could soon float on the stock market.

Yesterday, Bill Westwater, the chief executive of Xeros, declined to comment about the company’s fund-raising options.

However, the Yorkshire Post understands that Xeros has hired the investment bank Jefferies to look at its strategic options, although the company is not on a pre-determined route to an initial public offering (IPO). It is understood that a listing is one of a number of options being considered.

Mr Westwater told the Yorkshire Post yesterday: “Across 2013 the company has achieved multiple value inflection points. The company has achieved strong traction in the commercial laundry market, acceleration towards a residential solution, and even gone beyond laundry, with encouraging results using Xeros beads for more efficient leather processing.

“Together with a strong balance sheet, this is exactly the progress anticipated after our £10m fund raising.

“We have primed the pump to achieve our mission – to transform the conventional world of aqueous washing to Xeros bead cleaning.”

According to Mr Westwater, Xeros is manufacturing and marketing the first genuine innovation in laundering for 60 years, thanks to the polymer beads’ ability to gently agitate stains and soil from textile surfaces. Xeros says this system uses 70 per cent less water than conventional systems. It also saves energy.

Current Xeros partners include the national laundering provider Johnsons Services Group and premium dry cleaners Jeeves of Belgravia.

Last year, Xeros raised £10m funding to accelerate the roll-out of its commercial laundry cleaning system. Invesco Perpetual managed funds invested £6m, with existing investors raising the balance of £4m. They included Enterprise Ventures, IP Group, Entrepreneurs Fund, Finance Yorkshire, and Parkwalk Advisors.

Earlier this month, Mr Westwater told the Yorkshire Post: “We’ve got about 30 staff in Rotherham, we’ve also got a small office in the US which employs about five people, and we even have a couple of people in China as well, so we’re growing quite aggressively at the moment. We want to be the global leader in this whole new way of cleaning. We are proudly a Yorkshire company. I also hope that we can be proudly be part of renaissance as well for industries in Yorkshire. We’ve got pretty ambitious plans for further fund-raising in 2014.

“We’re essentially pre-revenue as we only launched our first product (the commercial laundry machine) in June last year. However, we’ve raised £16m in private equity funding which gives you an idea how our investors view our potential.”

Xeros is based at the Advanced Manufacturing Park (AMP) which is also home to world-class organisations such as Boeing and Rolls-Royce.

The company’s green credentials were praised by Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg during a recent visit.

The Sheffield Hallam MP said: “It takes your breath away. It is such a simple idea, but it is so revolutionary. It could save billions and billions of litres of water over time. The implications are profound in terms of water and energy use. This is a great example of what we want to see happening in the British economy.”

Nobody from Jefferies responded to a request for comment yesterday.

A number of well known Yorkshire companies have decided to float over the last year, as investor confidence returns.

Polypipe, one of Europe’s biggest manufacturers of plastic pipe systems, is planning a flotation in the spring that would value the company at over £400m.

Doncaster-based Polypipe’s return to the stock market would come hot on the heels of the successful flotations of Sheffield-based software firm Servelec, Bradford-based double glazing firm Safestyle and Wakefield-based value fashion chain Bonmarche. Polypipe has appointed Deutsche Bank, Numis Securities and Canaccord Genuity ahead of the float.