Founder - Hoowaki

Most startups are built around a single idea. Hoowaki is built around a technology that refused to fit into just one.
Founder Ralph Hulseman spent 25 years in Michelin's research and development division after earning his chemical engineering degrees from MIT. During his time at Michelin, one project connected him with researchers at the University of Illinois who were developing a superhydrophobic water-repelling material designed to keep mud from sticking to tires. While the technology ultimately wasn't the right solution for the tire industry, Ralph believed it had potential far beyond its original purpose.

"Most startups are built around a single idea. Hoowaki is built around a technology that refused to fit into just one.
Founder Ralph Hulseman spent 25 years in Michelin's research and development division after earning his chemical engineering degrees from MIT. During his time at Michelin, one project connected him with researchers at the University of Illinois who were developing a superhydrophobic water-repelling material designed to keep mud from sticking to tires. While the technology ultimately wasn't the right solution for the tire industry, Ralph believed it had potential far beyond its original purpose.
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Most startups are built around a single idea. Hoowaki is built around a technology that refused to fit into just one.

Founder Ralph Hulseman spent 25 years in Michelin’s research and development division after earning his chemical engineering degrees from MIT. During his time at Michelin, one project connected him with researchers at the University of Illinois who were developing a superhydrophobic water-repelling material designed to keep mud from sticking to tires. While the technology ultimately wasn’t the right solution for the tire industry, Ralph believed it had potential far beyond its original purpose.

In 2008, he joined Professor William P. King, John Warner, and the University of Illinois team to launch Hoowaki. What followed was nearly two decades of testing, learning, and pivoting. The company explored superhydrophobic anti-icing coatings for Navy ships and helicopter blades, worked with major oil and gas companies to develop materials for hydraulic fracturing, and licensed technology for superhydrophobic and slippery medical devices. Some opportunities disappeared when markets changed. Others simply couldn’t outperform existing solutions. Instead of viewing those moments as failures, Ralph and his team treated each one as another step toward finding the right fit.

That persistence eventually led Hoowaki in an entirely new direction. Rather than focusing on making surfaces repel water, the team began exploring how to create surfaces with better grip. Inspired by the way insects cling to plant surfaces, they discovered a gap in the scientific literature that had largely gone unexplored. What started as a materials science challenge became a mechanical engineering breakthrough, resulting in more than 50 patents and opening doors to applications ranging from surgical robotics to athletic footwear.

Today, Hoowaki’s technology can be applied to metals, ceramics, plastics, and rubber to improve grip without relying on adhesives or abrasive surfaces. A large market that Hoowaki is focusing on is for rubber and plastic thin film with high grip. Other films are slippery when wet. Hoowaki MicroGrip films offer high grip in challenging environments.

One application is improving performance of implanted medical devices, while another resulted in Adidas for soccer cleats designed to perform consistently in wet, dry, and muddy conditions. For Ralph, however, the biggest win wasn’t any single product. It was uncovering a completely new way of thinking about the problem. 

One lesson has remained constant throughout the company’s journey: “It’s either pivot or go under.”

While many founders are told to focus on one opportunity, Ralph believes it’s equally important to have other possibilities developing in the background. Markets change, customers disappear, and industries evolve. Having multiple paths forward allowed Hoowaki to adapt instead of starting over, a mindset that has carried the company through nearly 18 years of innovation.

Greenville’s startup ecosystem has also played an important role in that journey. After spinning out of Michelin and the University of Illinois, Hoowaki received early support from SCRA and SC Launch before participating in NextGEN’s Venture Mentoring Service (VMS). The company operated out of Clemson for several years before becoming the first tenant in NEXT’s manufacturing facility, where it found the space needed to continue growing. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Hoowaki pivoted once again, producing approximately one million medical swabs with support from the City of Greenville and the Greenville Local Development Corporation.

 Now, after years of research, countless pivots, and patient investors who understood that deep-tech innovation takes time, Hoowaki is entering its next chapter. The focus is no longer on discovering where the technology belongs. It’s on manufacturing at mass scale, expanding into new industries, and delivering on nearly two decades of perseverance. 

The company is now producing high grip, thin films for medical devices, roofing underlayment, floor graphics, labels, tapes, surface protection films, safety products, flooring, seating and more. 

As Ralph put it with a smile, “And all that only took 18 years.”