Steelike, Inc., creator, producer and supplier of Steelike UHPC, has announced that it raised $2 million in a seed investment for production of ultra-high performance concrete (UHPC). As part of the transaction, its predecessor Kulish Design Co., LLC changed its name to Steelike, Inc.
The round was led by an investor group centralized in Chicago with participation from certain members of New York Angels and the funding will be used to scale growth to meet increasing demand.
“The industry has been seeking a UHPC for infrastructure applications that is both easier to work with and competitively priced,” says William T. Kulish, co-founder and president of Steelike, Inc. and inventor of Steelike UHPC. “After years of development, testing, and production, Steelike delivers on those needs and more, with a product that meets or exceeds performance specifications required by federal and state agencies for highway infrastructure projects. With this funding, we’re looking forward to bringing the advantages of Steelike UHPC to our growing number of customers across the U.S.”
The demand for Steelike UHPC, which has been commercially produced and supplied for construction projects since 2014, has been accelerating. Most recently, Steelike UHPC was successfully used to connect precast deck panels for the accelerated bridge deck replacement of the I-64/77 bridges over WV-94 in Marmet, West Virginia.
“This investment round enables Steelike to accelerate its business and serve more and more customers. Demand for Steelike UHPC in construction projects, especially for highway infrastructure, has been growing and now we’ll be able to effectively scale to meet that demand,” says Chen Wang, co-founder and CEO of Steelike. “We’re delighted to work with our investment partners to meet this tremendous opportunity in the market.”
The funding will expedite Steelike’s research and development of innovative UHPC products and methods and empower the company to continue to build relationships with contractors, precasters, engineers, and the academic community. A couple of the company’s groundbreaking innovations include:
- Eliminating the need for expensive and hard to find specialized mixers by enabling the use of ready-mix trucks to mix Steelike UHPC
- Eliminating the need to overfill and grind UHPC connections
The funding will also accelerate the development of technology for mixing and placing Steelike UHPC, with the goal of making on-site placement even faster and easier.
UHPC, a composite material that is the closest thing to steel in the concrete world, is being increasingly specified and adopted in the U.S. where the UHPC industry is poised for growth as applications proliferate. Steelike UHPC is positioned to capitalize on this growth due to its ability to be mixed on site in standard and widely available ready-mix trucks, its ease of application and finishing, its superior material performance and its competitive pricing.
