brrr° Welcomes Retail Executive Christopher Heyn to Board
We are excited to welcome seasoned retail and apparel executive Christopher Heyn to our Board of Directors!
Heyn has extensive experience in the apparel and retail industry and has propelled numerous brands to growth and prominence in their category.
He was most recently Chief Executive Officer of Southern Tide, which is one of the fastest-growing lifestyle apparel brands in the United States with leisure and activewear collections for men, women and children as well as collegiate themed apparel and fashion accessories.
While at Southern Tide, Heyn led the brand’s omni channel expansion to build its direct-to-consumer and business-to-business efforts, oversaw the opening of 20 retail stores, improved the catalogue, and expanded product availability to more than 1,200 specialty retailers including premium department stores as well as the resort and golf channel. He also enhanced the company’s brand ambassador program to promote Southern Tide among influencers on college campuses, launched a women’s collection, and oversaw the creation of a brrr° Collection of apparel that instantly and continuously draws heat and moisture away from the skin.
Earlier in his career, Heyn was CEO and Chairman of sportswear marketer Summit Golf Brands, where he transformed the company’s operations by enhancing revenue and profitability to propel Summit Golf to become the third-largest golf apparel company in the country. He previously served as Senior Vice President of the National Basketball Association’s Global Merchandise Group and served as President of Nautica, where he helped elevate the brand to become the #2 ranked men’s sportswear collection in the United States.
“Chris is one of the most insightful and forward-thinking leaders in apparel and retail, and we are fortunate to add his expertise and wisdom to our Board of Directors,” said Mary-Cathryn Kolb, Founder and CEO of brrr°. “Chris has a special talent for spotting and responding to consumer demands, and we welcome his hands-on leadership and institutional knowledge as we strengthen our board and enter a new stage of growth.”
brrr° Founder & CEO Speaks at EY Forum
We were excited to see brrr° Founder & CEO Mary-Cathryn Kolb featured at a fireside chat about the power of resilience as part of the EY Strategic Growth Forum in California last week.
Kolb joined milk + honey spa founder Alissa Bayer on stage and they talked about pivoting their business models during the pandemic, how they are supporting employees through unprecedented stress on their personal and professional lives, and how they are managing the ongoing global supply chain disruptions.
The entrepreneurs talked about what resilience looks like in action, and how determination and grit shape them as leaders and decision makers.
"It's about progress over perfection," Kolb said.
The EY Strategic Growth Forum is an annual event that forges high-value CEO-to-CEO connections. This year's gathering featured Emmy winning actor and director Dan Levy of Schitt's Creek, former professional driver and entrepreneur Danica Patrick, VF Corporation CEO Steve Rendle, and Athena Technology Acquisition Corp. Co-Founder and CEO Phyllis Newhouse, who is the only Black female CEO of a SPAC listed company on the New York Stock Exchange.
brrr° Founder & CEO Mary-Cathryn Kolb Presents at Venture Atlanta 2021
We were excited to see brrr° Founder & CEO Mary-Cathryn Kolb take the stage at the #VA2021 investor conference hosted by Venture Atlanta.
This was a record-breaking and hyper competitive year for the conference with more than 400 applicants, and brrr° was honored to be chosen as one of the most promising tech companies in the Southeast.
It was the second time Kolb was chosen to present on-stage in front of a limited group of investors and sponsors including Invesco, Mailchimp, Stax, Cherry Bekaert, Truist and Goldman Sachs to name a few.
“The energy and pent-up demand to connect growth stage companies with investors who are actively seeking to place funds was palpable at Venture Atlanta,” said Kolb, who founded brrr° in 2014 after previous leadership roles at companies including Spanx and TOMS Shoes. “We deeply appreciate the opportunity to tell our story of innovation and traction at a time when we are actively raising a new round of venture capital.”
Since it was created in 2007, Venture Atlanta has grown to become one of the leading investor conferences in the country by helping launch more than 500 companies who raised more than $6.5 billion in funding to date.
Previous participants include ParkMobile (bought by EasyPark Group), Kabbage (bought by American Express), Cloud Sherpas (bought by Accenture) Pindrop and SalesLoft, which was recently valued at $1.1 billion.
The Future of Cool: brrr° Pro
We’re relentless when it comes to developing new advances in cooling fabric technology, especially against the backdrop of rising global temperatures.
That’s why we spent more than three years and experimented on dozens of formulas before we landed on our most sophisticated performance cooling fabric yet: brrr° Pro.
brrr° Pro uses enhanced cooling fibers, hyper wicking, and performance drying to elevate the Triple Chill Effect® that instantly and continuously draws heat and moisture away from the skin.
It’s a new concentrated cooling technology that harnesses the power of micro-cooling technology and advanced dispersion techniques to intensify the cooling power of brrr°.
Like all brrr° products, brrr° Pro is independently lab tested by globally recognized third-party labs and proven to outperform other brands.
Because it can help keep people cooler, drier, and more confident so they can perform their best at work and at play, brrr° Pro can also help reduce our reliance on central air conditioning and that’s good for the planet.
Learn more about brrr° Pro by connecting with one of our experts.
Can Our Clothes Keep Us Cooler?
Global temperatures continue to trend hotter, and many people feel like there isn’t much they can do about it as individuals.
What if we could choose clothes and other household items that reduce our need for central air conditioning and energy consumption?
brrr° advanced cooling fabric technology can draw heat and moisture away from our skin, which keeps us cooler and more comfortable even when the thermometer rises.
Better thermoregulation and less sweat means we’re less likely to crank the thermostat down to colder temperatures, and that lowers our use of fossil fuels that contribute to global warming.
brrr°’s patented technology uses natural cooling minerals, active wicking, and rapid drying to create a Triple Chill Effect®️ that instantly lowers the temperature of our skin and encourages the evaporation of moisture. brrr° fabrics are independently lab tested and proven to perform better than other brands. To learn more, check out our test results here.
Man, It’s Getting Hot Outside
Our planet has gotten a lot warmer over the last several decades, and the pace of change is accelerating rapidly.
As scientists study the causes and politicians negotiate policy changes, there’s one thing consumers can do to contribute to a healthier planet: look for advances in fabric and other materials that help keep us cooler and reduce our dependence on fossil fuels.
To lower your energy consumption for central air conditioning, the U.S. Department of Energy recommends turning your thermostat up several degrees in the summer while you’re away and then lowering it to a more comfortable temperature when you return.
Doing this, and taking the reverse approach during the cold winter months, can help reduce your energy bill by as much as 10% per year.
Fabrics that draw heat and moisture away from your skin can help you feel cooler and drier all day long so you won’t need to turn the thermostat as low when summertime temperatures rise.
brrr°’s patented cooling fabric technology combines the powers of natural cooling minerals, active wicking and rapid drying to create a Triple Chill Effect®️ that instantly and continuously draws heat and moisture away from the skin. Each brrr° fabric is independently lab tested and proven to keep you cooler and outperform other brands.
Clothing, undergarments, bedding, accessories, and numerous other products are powered by brrr° fabrics. Learn more here.
brrr° Selected as a Venture Atlanta 2021 Presenting Company
Over $6.5 billion in funding awarded to date; leading tech investment conference continues to select large and diverse lineup of innovators from the Southeast’s hottest tech markets.
ATLANTA – Sept. 22 2021 – brrr° is pleased to have been chosen as one of the top technology companies in the Southeast to present at Venture Atlanta 2021 conference in a hyper-competitive year with a record-breaking pool of 400-plus applicants.
This is the second time brrr° has been invited to present, and its first appearance was in 2017 when it was included in the startup showcase. This year’s Venture Atlanta conference will be held October 20-21, with more than 300 investors from funds across the nation participating.
For 14 years, the annual Venture Atlanta conference has been selecting the most promising tech companies to pitch their investment case to the top investment firms in America. Venture Atlanta has helped launch more than 500 companies and raise $6.5 billion to expand the region’s vibrant tech community.
“We are excited to be in front of influential investors at Venture Atlanta at a time when we’re actively raising a new round of venture funding to support our growth,” said Mary-Cathryn Kolb, the Founder & CEO of brrr°.
Kolb started brrr° in 2014 to develop advanced performance cooling fabric technology that helps keep people more comfortable in their everyday lives. brrr°’s patented technology combines the power of natural cooling minerals, active wicking, and rapid drying to create a “Triple Chill Effect®” that instantly and continuously draws heat and moisture away from the skin. Its newest offering is brrr° Pro, which uses micro cooling minerals to amplify the cooling effect. Retailers including Southern Tide, Vineyard Vines, Reebok, Shinesty, Simms Fishing, and Sheex use brrr° to enhance their products.
This year’s Venture Atlanta will be held in person with a limited number of tickets available and will also be offered online for those who wish to tune in virtually. For those attending in person, Venture Atlanta is back with its always-great sessions, company presentations, networking opportunities, and outdoor dinner events.
“Venture Atlanta has become the authority for recognizing technology innovation across the Southeast and beyond, connecting the best and brightest innovators with top-tier, national investors and other leaders in our tech ecosystem,” said Venture Atlanta CEO Allyson Eman. “We again set a new record with over 400 applicants for Venture Atlanta Momentum 2021—it’s our most competitive year ever and reflects yet another raising of the bar in terms of presenter quality.”
Building off last year’s successful virtual model, Venture Atlanta’s online experience offers a high-production-quality option that mirrors the benefits of the live conference. Virtual attendees can connect with others at the conference, set up one-on-one meetings, stroll the virtual show floor, watch pitches in real-time, and use features like live chat and audience polling. Each ticket purchased provides attendees with on-demand access to all Venture Atlanta pitches and content for a full year.
Invesco is this year’s premier sponsor, with Mailchimp and Stax as presenting sponsors. Venture Atlanta will conclude with Atlanta Startup Battle, in which the top five ASB companies will pitch on stage against one another to win a $100,000 investment.
To learn more about brrr°, visit brrr.com. For additional information about Venture Atlanta, to register for the event, or to view the conference schedule, please visit www.ventureatlanta.org.
About Venture Atlanta
Venture Atlanta, the Southeast’s technology innovation event, is where the region’s most promising tech companies meet the country's top-tier investors. As the Southeast's largest investor showcase helping launch more than 500 companies and raise $6.5 billion in funding to date, the event connects the region’s top entrepreneurs with local and national investors and others in the technology ecosystem who can help them raise the capital they need to grow their businesses. The annual nonprofit event is a collaboration of the Atlanta CEO Council, Metro Atlanta Chamber, and the Technology Association of Georgia (TAG). For more information, visit www.ventureatlanta.org. For updates, follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn, and visit our blog.
About brrr°
brrr° was founded in 2014 with a vision of developing technologically advanced performance cooling fabrics that improve the items we wear and touch in our everyday lives. brrr° uses natural cooling minerals, active wicking, and rapid drying to create a “Triple Chill Effect®” that immediately and continuously draws heat and moisture away from the skin. Our newest offering is brrr° Pro, a performance level technology that uses micro cooling minerals to amplify the cooling effect and is our most advanced cooling fabric yet. Atlanta-based brrr° is privately held and led by Founder & CEO Mary-Cathryn Kolb, who previously held senior positions at Spanx, Seven7 Jeans, Von Dutch, and TOMS Shoes. For more information, please visit brrr.com.
Contact:
Mary Jane Credeur
The Credeur Group
mj [at] credeurgroup.com
404.317.2718
Forloh's "Partners in Innovation" Article on brrrº Partnership
How FORLOH and brrr° are Working Together to Create Cutting-Edge “Made in America” Hunting Gear.
When Andy Techmanski started FORLOH in early 2020, he did it because he wanted to make the best possible hunting gear and clothing, and do it exclusively in America. Moreover, he wanted to redefine what was possible for hunting garments, so he and his team thought outside the box and looked for other like-minded innovation partners who were committed to the “100% Made in America” mission.
One of those individuals was Mary-Cathryn Kolb, founder & CEO of the innovative, self-cooling fabric, brrr°. Kolb leveraged her decades of experience in the garment industry, to unlock a patented cooling fabric technology.
Where Did the Idea for brrr° Begin?
“The idea for brrr° started about a decade ago when I was a sales executive at Spanx,” Kolb said. “I was intrigued by how these tiny little fibers could work so hard to stretch and support our bodies, and I started to think: ‘What else could they do? What if they could actually keep us cooler? What if they could draw heat and moisture away from our skin?’ And the idea for brrr° was born.”
Still, there’s a difference between an idea and a viable product. So when Kolb saw how much potential there was for this product, she quickly took steps to make her idea a reality.
“I did a lot of research and discovered that there really hadn’t been very many advances in ‘cooling’ fabric in 20 years!” she said. “Some brands claim that they are cooling, but they’re really just good at wicking. They don’t actually remove heat. So we knew we had to do something very innovative if we wanted to shake up the industry. I quit my day job and raised some seed capital and began working on R&D for brrr°.”
Kolb notes that there was a lot of trial and error to perfect brrr°.
“We worked on brrr° for years,” she said. “There were dozens of formulas we considered, and we kept testing and iterating and tweaking the formula, until we got it just right. Our teams in Taiwan and the U.S. ran tests on more than 1,000 kgs of yarn, which is almost as heavy as some cars. So it was a pretty big effort”
How Does brrr° Technology Work?
So how does it work? Kolb explained that brrr° combines three important elements: natural cooling minerals, active wicking and rapid drying.
“Together they create something we call the ‘Triple Chill Effect’ that instantly draws heat and moisture away from your skin, and keeps doing that the longer you wear it,” she said. “When you lay brrr° fabric against your skin, you can actually feel how cool it is. That’s a big differentiator in stores when people can touch it and feel the difference.”
People notice innovation, especially if they can feel the difference. That’s why we jumped at the opportunity to partner with them and use their all-new brrr° PRO technology in several of our new apparel lines.
“brrr° Pro is our most advanced cooling technology yet,” said Kolb. “It’s more intense cooling, and it uses micro cooling minerals that intensify the cooling sensation. There’s also hyper wicking and performance drying. These three technologies work together to deliver performance-level advanced cooling.
“We recently tested it on a device called a Manikin to mimic the performance of a human. Those tests showed that it continues to cool you off more when you wear it for a longer period of time, which is really important for hunters, anglers and anyone who spends time outdoors.”
Like FORLOH, brrr° takes great pride in its final product, sending each garment through rigorous QA processes, including lab testing every piece of brrr° fabric.
“We run every fabric through rigorous testing with independent globally respected third-party labs, and we test against other competing brands in the market to prove that brrr° outperforms,” Kolb said.
As both FORLOH and brrr° continue their growth, Kolb is eager to see what the future holds, especially given shifting trends in consumer shopping.
As both FORLOH and brrr° continue their growth, Kolb is eager to see what the future holds.
“Consumers have gotten used to wearing more comfortable and casual clothes while they’ve been working from home, and they don’t want to give up that comfort when they go back to the office or transition to hybrid office/remote work,” Kolb observed. “Retailers are working hard to respond and rethink their designs, cuts, fabrics and features — and we think brrr° is in a great position to meet those needs and deliver superior cooling comfort.”
FORLOH is ready to help deliver that comfort. To check out our apparel featuring the brrr° PRO cooling technology, see them here.
Follow us @forloh_officialon Instagram!
Related:
Why Forloh?Join the future of hunting!
By FORLOH Ambassador Maranda Hough
Click here for the original article
AATCC Features brrrº: Innovative Breathable and Sustainable Fabrics
Innovative Breathable and Sustainable Fabrics by Dr. Thanaseelen Rajasakran
Global warming has spawned global “heated” conversations and debates. The threat of climate change and the issue of sustainability affecting lives and livelihoods still does matter. Result: there is immense pressure on a variety of industries in terms of environmental sustainability—escalated by the influence of environmental groups like Extinction Rebellion.
One industry particularly affected by the shifting patterns of generally warmer climates is the sportswear industry. In either hot or cold temperatures, exercise is an essential part of one’s normal wellbeing and existence. Dressing in the right comfortable attire matters as well. However, the Harvard Business Review points out, about 30% of all textile consumption are susceptible to climate change.
The reality check for sportswear manufacturers is that they need to have a re-think when it comes to innovative solutions—as espoused by the Textile Exchange—in creating new materials of comfort for people who exercise. Not only must the solution function excellently, but it must also adhere to sustainability goals.
Breathable Innovation
Researchers have upped the ante with the discovery of new breathable materials. Biomimicry takes innovative concepts from nature, such as the pinecone (with its microporous scale structure), that opens and closes according to outside temperature. Researchers have been working on several innovative technologies, from cellulose-based fibers coated with a thin layer of carbon nanotubes, to wine bottle corks. Granulated cork works on the premise quite like a vehicle radiator that chokes-out excess heat, with the promise to maintain a cooler human body.
Essentially, it means when prevalent environmental conditions are warm and moist on the outside, the fabric essentially allows heat to pass through, and vice versa when the environment is cool and dry, making it easier for individuals when exercising as heat is released in the form of perspiration.
Some fabrics even contain environmentally friendly minerals, which act as “heat scavengers” pulling heat away from the skin surface to provide a cool-to-touch sensation, notes Courtney Cruzan, Vice President of Sourcing and Product Development at brrr°.
Testing and measurement undertaken by Intertek Testing Services in Taiwan, has indicated brrr°’s nylon and polyester fabrics outperform comparable products in lab tests, as per Qmax (cool to the touch) standards, wicking (which draws moisture away from the body), and dry time.
Sustainability Concerns
Still, the question remains if these new fashionable sporting materials support the United Nations Sustainable Development 2030 Goals? Another constant environmental challenge and responsibility that sportswear designers and product developers face today concerns wastewater management, particularly plastic fiber fragments (often called “microfibers”). These are usually smaller than five millimeters and are solid insoluble synthetic polymers, almost invisible to the naked eye. Greenpeace notes there is hardly any global body of water, including lakes, rivers, seas, and the deep ocean that is impervious to plastic.
According to Cruzan, brrr° materials have a proprietary blend of minerals, which are not on the American Apparel & Footwear Association’s Restricted Substance List. Its fabric partners also adhere to strict environmental standards as required by Okeo-Tex and Bluesign certification. Cruzan points out that brrr° materials have sustainability in mind and are “ahead of the SDG2030 goals.”
With meaningful steps to address sustainability issues concerning breathable sportwear, the outlook for sportswear is looking chic and cool. “The future looks bright with more stakeholders jumping on the breathable sportswear sustainability bandwagon,” says Cruzan.
Dr. Thanaseelen Rajasakran is an Assistant Professor at a Malaysian university, Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman. He is passionate about all things concerning environmental sustainability.
Original Article Found Here