Katherine Homuth has raised US$200-million for her innovative textile company Sheertex Inc., which aims to replace nylon tights with an unbreakable alternative, sideline waterproof fabric heavyweight Gore-Tex andBut while Sheertex, known as SRTX, counts fashion icon Chip Wilson, Swedish retail giant H&M Group, and clean technology venture capitalists, among its investors, it hasn’t raised institutional money in its home province – until now.
IQ has financed a range of companies across many industries operating in the province. But while Montreal has long been Canada’s garment trade capital, the “textile, clothing and leather products” category has been a laggard on IQ’s books, drawing the lowest or second-lowest level of financing from the agency among all secondary manufacturing sectors in 11 of the last 12 years.relocating to a former Gildan Activewear hosiery plant from Ontario’s Muskoka region.
Paul Desmarais III, a key figure in Montreal’s tech sector, also helped Ms. Homuth make local connections: “She has done a lot out of very little,” said Mr. Desmarais, a senior executive with Power Corp. of Canada and board member with Endeavor Canada, which champions promising high-growth entrepreneurs such as SRTX’s CEO. “She hustles.”
Against that backdrop, SRTX offers promise and renewal. It makes leggings from ultrahigh-molecular-weight polyethylene , the same material used in bulletproof vests – which last longer than nylon tights, which tear easily. It has also developed an impermeable layer called Watertex it hopes to sell as an ecologically superior alternative to Gore-Tex and other waterproof materials that are made from perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances and don’t break down in nature.