Wpg Free Press: Company coated in high hopes

As the Winnipeg Free Press reports:

Two years ago Zach Wolff, the CEO of Exigence Technologies, was winning student entrepreneur pitch contests for his breakthrough technology, an anti-microbial surface coating.

Since then, the company has made all the big players in the global industrial coating business get very interested in what it is doing….

Since launching the company a couple of years ago as MBA students at the Asper School of Business, Wolff and his partner Sheri Governo have been able to get the attention of most of the big players in the global industrial coatings business….

Part of the challenge in developing Exigence and commercializing the product — called SymbiCoat and SymbiCide — was to decide on which vertical market to concentrate on first.

The company has chosen the food-processing industry because it is the largest and is in need of additional weapons in the fight to maintain food safety and prevent food recalls.

“They (Exigence personnel) have been working on a shoestring,” said Darren Fast, executive director of the University of Manitoba’s technology transfer office. “This is a hot area and a hot technology. There is great interest in this. They really did manage to find something where there is a big need in the market. And they have a solution. They have to bring it the rest of the way to the market. They are doing that. It’s just going to take more time and more hard work.”