Swipe right. How Trusscore is focusing on technology and innovation to change the building and construction industry – Trusscore

Imagine changing the color of your living room walls with a finger swipe of your smart phone.  

Or being admitted to a hospital built with walls that are uninhabitable to microbes, bacteria and viruses – viruses like COVID-19.  

Or consider the peace of mind that would come from living in a space equipped with walls that can help prevent a fire.  

Outlandish, you say?  

Those are precisely the kind of frontiers on which Trusscore – a building materials company imbued with science – has set its sights.  

And it’s the very reason why Trusscore has adopted the corporate motto of “material science.” Science is at the heart of the Trusscore story. 

That may sound ambitious for a company that has a vision of replacing painted drywall. And fair enough, the building materials space to which Trusscore belongs is hardly one with a reputation for innovation or boundary challenging technology. The truth is, building and construction methods and materials have traditionally changed very slowly. Drywall, for instance, was invented in 1916 and yet didn’t gain any traction until the 1940s, driven by the end of WW II, the baby boom and a severe shortage of plaster (wet wall) installers. Once it was adopted, its ubiquity and design went virtually unchallenged for some 80 years – to the present day.  

And that very fact is a large part of the market opportunity Trusscore sees – to be a technological leader in the building materials space. To see opportunity where others don’t. To make and deliver modern, functional, improved products that none of us would think of living without. 

As Trusscore’s talented Director of Research & Development, Ryan Gerakopulos, said recently, “We’re coming from an industry that is fairly low tech, and we’re working to move it past the status quo – to produce very technically bold products.” 

Trusscore currently makes incredibly durable PVC-based wall and ceiling panels – alternatives for painted drywall – that incorporate technology that is already changing the way people build. Our products, suitable for residential, commercial, and agriculture applications, are impervious to water, strong and yet light in weight, easier to install than drywall, 100 per cent recyclable/reusable, and functional in ways that drywall can never be.  

But we’re just getting started. 

Many of our team members have strong technology backgrounds. Ryan and his R&D team, for instance, are tech startup veterans with deep roots in advanced nanotechnology, chemistry and innovation culture. Two of our team members have PhDs in material science; two others have Masters-level degrees in mechanical and mechatronics engineering and collectively the R&D team have co-authored dozens of peer-reviewed scientific publications.  

As for me, I’m a serial entrepreneur in the tech startup space, with two successful exits behind me. My interest in, and awareness of, the power of technology and innovation is precisely what convinced me that the future of Trusscore was as a material science company and to embark, along with the company’s two founders, Chief Manufacturing Officer Steve Bosman and Executive Vice-President Joel Koops, on our current journey, with technology as the focus.  

Put simply, I think there’s an under-appreciation for the revolution that’s happening in advanced materials and material science with respect to their application for new, sustainable, building materials.  

I’ve had a lifelong dislike for painted drywall and its limitations. Trusscore’s products, which already have a firmly established beachhead in the agricultural market thanks to Steve and Joel’s hard work, are gaining wider and more popular adoption, and that adoption will only grow as we bring additional technology and formulations to bear.  

That’s precisely why we established a satellite office for Trusscore in the world-renowned Communitech innovation hub in Kitchener, Ontario. Communitech is a public-private partnership at the core of Waterloo Region’s emergence as one of the world’s hottest centres for technology development.  

We’ve also partnered with the University of Waterloo’s Institute for Nanotechnology, a global leader in developing smart, functional materials and a key player in the Waterloo Region tech ecosystem, in order to drive innovation in Trusscore products and ensure our materials are on the cutting edge of science. 

“We’re introducing things into the building and construction space that is radically new,” says Gerakopulos. “To do so, we have to be very methodical. Scientifically we have to be deliberate. It’s all about credibility and trustworthiness – we know how to chart our path forward. We know there are successful, important, outcomes out there.”  

Or, to put it another way, success for Trusscore is tied to material science. And where does it all lead?  

Swipe left and change the color of your walls. Swipe right and change your mind about the future of the building materials industry.