Xeros: The Yorkshire firm changing the world of washing machines and jeans

Given the company’s hugely-ambitious aim to have their technology feature in every washing machine in the world, the set-up is no surprise but it helps bring home the message that its relatively modest site in South Yorkshire is the base from which the firm hopes to realise its global ambitions.

Showing The Yorkshire Post around, CEO Neil Austin says: "We have been on this site for seven to eight years and it has always been the hub of everything Xeros does. It is the heart of what the business is all about."

Starting life as a University of Leeds spinout, Xeros – from the Greek word for ‘dry’ and which has around 35 employees – is focused on creating technologies that reduce the impact of clothing on the planet, both in terms of producing garments and keeping them clean.

It has three central areas of focus; the first being ‘Care’ which involved patented polymer spheres – effectively nylon beads – being placed into washing machines alongside clothing to reduce water and energy usage in a cycle, with the beads collected in a XDrum at the end of the wash ready to be used again.

XOrbs are designed to work like “tiny hands” – rolling between fabrics to stop fibres from rubbing together and causing clothing damage.

They are already in use in commercial washing machines but the key ambition is to start rolling out their use in domestic appliances. The company estimates that if a million customers started washing with XOrbs they could save over four billion litres of water every year between them.

Xeros has partnered with IFB, India's largest domestic and commercial washing machine manufacturer, on the rollout of home washing machines which use the technology this year and Austin hopes it will not be too long before they become available for British consumers.

Austin, who joined the company last August having previously worked for the likes of industry giants Glen Dimplex and Whirlpool as well as filtration specialist Strix, says: “Our aspiration is this technology will be in every single washing machine in the world because we know it is beneficial to the environment and to the consumer.

“We are in conversations with three major washing machine brands everybody will have heard of. The industry is inherently conservative and the race is often to be second rather than first. IFB’s launch will be an important moment as proof of concept. A lot of the work the business has done has been leading to this moment.”

The XOrbs are visible during the washing process and Austin says even having a couple left over in a drum after a cycle finishes can be seen positively.

"There will always be a couple left and we don’t think that is a bad thing,” he says. “Consumers want to know the thing they have been promised is actually happening. You can hear the XOrbs moving around and it is quite a gentle noise.”

He adds: “A traditional washing cycle will be quite harsh in terms of your garment which means some fast-fashion, cheaply produced garments won’t last very long. The Xeros technology enables the garment to be cleaned just as effectively but in a much more gentle fashion. It means we should all start to see our garments lasting longer. That again is good for the planet and good for the consumer as well.”

The second focus for Xeros is in the field of Filtration, where it has developed the XFilter that is designed to trap microfibres released as part of the cleaning process and stopping them ending up in waste water and ultimately oceans.

The XFilter is designed to last the lifetime of a washing machine with no replacement cartridges and goes into a detergent drawer which can be emptied in a similar way to clearing lint from a tumble dryer. Three licensing agreements have already been signed with key suppliers to the washing machine industry in advance of France mandating a microfibre capture requirement in all washing machines from January 2025 – a move expected to be followed by other countries.

The third element of the company’s development work focuses on garment finishing – using XOrbs in the denim manufacturing process as an alternative to the pumice used in stone-washed jeans that come at an environmental cost as pumice rapidly breaks down.

In May, Xeros signed a deal allowing the use of its technology by Turkish firm Yilmak Makine, one of the largest manufacturers of garment finishing machines in the world.

Despite the excitement around the potential of its different products, it has not been an entirely smooth journey to this point for Xeros. Its preliminary results for 2022 showed a loss of £7.4m following on from £6.3m the year before, with chairman Klaas de Boer saying that it had been a “challenging year” for Xeros as it failed to deliver tangible evidence of market adoption at scale.

Mr de Boer has previously compared the “disconnect” between Xeros’s progress and its share price struggles with those of Amazon in 2000 – but also admitted the Yorkshire firm had “less quantifiable” metrics about its performance than Amazon did at that stage in its journey.

A research note by finnCap published alongside the company’s most recent results suggested the firm will break even in the next financial year but noted that progress on the IFB domestic washing machine project has been “slower than expected”. However, it also said that there is “massive” potential in its filtration device; noting that annual royalty income could potentially reach £150m a year if the technology was included in every new washing machine sold each year.

Austin says: "We are tackling some of the biggest problems the planet has got. Being involved with this is something to look back on when you are old and grey. We have got people who have been with this company since the beginning who are motivated by making a difference.”