Directa Plus (LON:DCTA) said it is lining up a collaboration with Poltrona Frau, a furniture manufacturer that is part of Haworth, the US office furniture manufacturer.
Poltrona Frau, which owns a number of luxury furniture brands, including Poltrona Frau, Cassina, Cappellini and Luxury Living, is also active in the car manufacturing business as the main supplier of leather components to Ferrari, and it also supplies leather furniture to airlines and yacht builders.
Directa Plus and Poltrona have signed a letter of intent on a collaboration that will see them jointly work on developing a new sustainable and high tech leather enhanced by the properties of Directa Plus's proprietary graphene technology. It is anticipated that leather enhanced with Directa Plus’s G+ will provide antimicrobial and antiviral properties, improved thermal regulation, electrical conductivity, and mechanical properties such as abrasion resistance and ultra-violet resilience.
After the product development phase, Directa Plus and Poltrona will work together to promote and commercialise the Poltrona Frau Leather enhanced with G+ Graphene Plus to customers of Poltrona Frau across all of their key sectors, giving rise to an enduring industrial and commercial partnership.
"High-quality leather has been a material of choice for designers and manufacturers for centuries due to its aesthetic and mechanical properties. By working together, Directa Plus and Poltrona Frau can combine knowledge and experience to bring new qualities to leather and enhance existing ones,” Giulio Cesareo, the chief executive of Directa Plus said in a statement.
"This agreement is an excellent example of Directa's commercialisation strategy working well, to help bring the benefits of graphene to existing markets by working alongside existing industrial leaders," he added.
The collaboration between Directa Plus and Poltrona Frau has been signed for an initial two years.