Floor Seal Technology | Application Preview
Floor Seal Technology (FST) is applying for a $5 million government grant to expand its operations into new markets and improve sustainability in the construction industry through its Vapor Seal 309 system. The funding will allow the company to reach additional states, enhance its technological capabilities, and strengthen its financial position for future growth.
### **Grant Utilization & Impact**
The funding will support several key initiatives:
- **Market Expansion:** FST plans to introduce Vapor Seal 309 into Washington, Oregon, Utah, and Arizona, helping reduce CO2 emissions, epoxy usage, and Scope 3 emissions in construction.
- **Sustainability Certification:** Funds will cover Environmental Product Declarations (EPD) and Health Product Declarations (HPD) for core products, making them more attractive to environmentally-conscious builders.
- **Technology Enhancement:** Investment in 3D laser scanning systems will enable live monitoring of concrete placement and structural conditions, reducing the need for costly remediation.
- **Financial Stability:** Part of the funding will improve bonding capacity ($2M) and eliminate the need to factor invoices ($600K), improving cash flow and reducing financial constraints.
For every 100,000 square feet of Vapor Seal 309 installed, the environmental benefits include:
- **48 metric tons of CO2 emissions reduced**
- **56,000 pounds of crystalline silica prevented from releasing into the air**
- **5,000 liters of epoxy eliminated**
- **2,800 liters of BPA removed from the process**
### **Business Growth Strategy**
FST's five-year plan focuses on:
- Expanding 3D technology capacity by 100% to handle more projects.
- Increasing on-site technical staff to ensure higher quality control.
- Strengthening relationships with key industry partners.
- Offering incentive programs, such as backend rebates for design-build customers.
- Enhancing digital marketing, improving online availability of specifications, and utilizing AI to identify construction bids that align with FST's offerings.
### **Why This Grant Matters**
FST has spent over 45 years innovating within the concrete industry, running a lean team of fewer than 10 customer-facing employees while delivering solutions for hospitals, tech campuses, and other major projects. Instead of reacting to concrete failures, FST takes a proactive approach to placement, curing, and finishing, saving clients time and money while improving sustainability.
Vapor Seal 309 offers a unique advantage: it eliminates the need for epoxy and bead blasting, ensuring a more environmentally friendly and efficient construction process. Unlike traditional methods, FST integrates live 3D concrete oversight with curing, preventing costly structural issues before they arise.
Despite its innovation, FST faces financial limitations preventing nationwide expansion. Past financial struggles restrict cash flow, and the company requires external support to fully realize the potential of Vapor Seal 309 as a national standard in sustainable concrete curing.
### **Competitive Positioning**
FST claims to have no direct competitors offering an equivalent system. While other concrete curing products exist, they often rely on silicates, which can violate building codes and require remediation. Similarly, general contractors may use 3D scanning, but only for post-construction analysis—not in real-time during the curing process.
Unlike other businesses focused on maximizing profitability, FST prioritizes project integrity over financial gain, ensuring the best possible outcomes for concrete structures. Their commitment to quality and sustainability drives their operations, but financial constraints limit their ability to scale.
### **Final Appeal**
Michael, representing FST, acknowledges past financial struggles but emphasizes the company's commitment to improving the industry. He expresses a sincere request for support, underlining that government funding would enable FST to significantly contribute to nationwide CO2 reduction efforts while making high-quality, sustainable concrete practices more accessible across the U.S.
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General Information
Business Registration Number: 942658820
Location: San Jose, CA, United States
Length of Operation: 11plus
Number of Employees: 51-100 Employees
Annual Gross Income: More than $10M
Annual Gross Expense: $1M to $10M
Open to Loans: YES
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Funding Usage
We will use this funding to expand our current operation into new markets and offer more sustainable solutions for our customers. By offering our sustainable Vapor Seal 309 in more states and markets, we can impact the construction industry more from a sustainability standpoint. The more projects that we can utilize our Vapor Seal 309 system on, the more CO2 emissions we can reduce, the more epoxy we can eliminate, the more we can impact Scope 3 Emissions, all equally a highly impactful system that improves construction sustainability nationwide. Part of the funding will be for EPD and HPD documents for each of our core products, which will validate the sustainability of our products for our business partners. By having EPD and HPD’s this allows our Vapor Seal 309 product to be specified on more projects, equaling more sustainability savings nationwide. By expanding our technology offering, we can have more 3D laser systems on site during construction. This will enable us to monitor the live placement of structural concrete while simultaneously monitoring the structural beam camber and deflection. The more we can monitor the concrete and structural beams, the more we can manipulate the concrete placement and movement in the structural beams. This all equals reduced leveling remediation needed on every project. Also, by increasing our product availability, we will decrease the need for epoxy and silicate containment from moisture remediation. The concrete moisture cure side of Vapor Seal 309 eliminates the need to bead blast concrete, which creates silicate dust that needs to be contained, and eliminates epoxy to seal moisture into the concrete slab. For every 100,000 square feet of Vapor Seal 309 utilized, we eliminate 48 metric tons of CO2 emissions, 56,000 pounds of Crystalline Silica released in the air, 5,000 liters of epoxy, and 2,800 liters of BPA. If you magnify these sustainability savings across the nation, it is easy to see the positive impact Vapor Seal 309 has on our environment. Spending breakdown $5,000,000 funding request: 8 additional 3D laser scanners = approximately $800,000, two scanners per each new target state (Washington, Oregon, Utah, Arizona) Architectural Sales, Contractor Sales, Two Project Technicians (Washington, Oregon, Utah, Arizona) = approximately $1,600,000 Bonding Capacity = approximately $2,000,000. Currently, our financials do not allow us to bond projects, so we lose the opportunity to target certain projects of a certain dollar amount. A $2,000,000 bond will allow us more access to projects and expand the sustainability impacts of Vapor Seal 309. Remove Factoring our Contracts = the remaining funds approximately $600,000, currently our cash flow is not in the best position, so we are forced to factor our invoices to receive cash faster. By factoring our invoices, we lose about 30% profit, making our budgets for marketing, growth, and sales activities more constrained. The more free cash flow we have, the more effectively we can operate our business, and the more exposure Vapor Seal 309 gets on more potential projects.
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Business Plan
We have expanded into Texas and plan to expand into Washington, Oregon, Utah, and Arizona in the next five years, with architectural and general contractor sales staff driving sales. In the next five years, we plan to expand our 3D technology capacity by 100%, which will allow us to expand our project capacity. We will also expand our on-site technical staff, which will allow us to provide better project QA/QC oversight and deliver better results. We will continue to build upon our partnerships and leverage our trade partnerships to collaborate on projects and strategize key accounts to target. We are creating custom pricing programs for key design-build customers, offering a % rebate on the backend of projects to encourage them to specify our products. This should increase our business of Vapor Seal 309 in Texas by 30% - 40%. We are going to utilize more online technology to generate business leads, improve our website and SEO functions, and improve our online availability of product specifications. We are currently using specification software on a local level but will expand this nationally. We are exploring the utilization of AI to comb through project bids and files for our products to ensure we do not miss any projects with our specifications. FST Design Build Concrete has been is a highly unique small business for over 45 years. Our company runs very lean, with less than 10 customer-facing employees, we have successfully managed high-level projects; from large healthcare facilities to world technology headquarters. Our daily passion for flat, crack-free, and sustainable structural concrete drives us to approach our customers and the market uniquely. The construction industry has forever taken a reactive approach to structural concrete placement, management, and monitoring, but we have turned this approach upside down. Each day, when our crew steps on a project site, we analyze every aspect of a project that will affect the placement and finish of concrete. We do this all to deliver the flattest, most sustainable concrete possible. We have learned over the years that by taking a proactive approach to how concrete is placed, finished, and cured, we can significantly save our customers' costs and schedules and increase their project sustainability from a variety of factors. When we are finished with a project, and our customer tells us we saved them weeks off their construction schedule, millions of dollars of remedial construction work, and helped them achieve their LEED, GWP, and Scope 3 Emissions goals, this fuels us to share this story on our next project. Our Vapor Seal 309 is such a unique system, with such a unique value add to anything else in the market, once an architect, general contractor, or owner truly understands the benefits of this system, they rarely look back. The biggest challenge we face is ourselves and the financial struggles/mistakes we have made in the past. These are, unfortunately, still hamstringing us from truly being able to make Vapor Seal 309 a system that is available nationwide. Our lack of financial security and cash reserves holds us back from expanding into more markets, spreading the impacts of Vapor Seal 309. We are working hard, each and every day to get ahead, but as a small business with large overhead, a small workforce, and in a price competitive market, we are doing the best that we can, but sometimes we all need help from an outside source. With all the CO2 emissions goals in California and the United States, providing funding for us would be a huge boost to reducing CO2 emissions in 2025 and beyond.
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Self Identified Competition
We do not have any individual competitors, that we know of. We are the only company that combines concrete curing with live concrete oversight. Other concrete curing products exist, but they are silicate-based, and their utilization in certain areas of a concrete slab violates the building code and requires remediation. We are NOT this system. Some general contractors use a similar 3D laser to the one we use to scan concrete after the fact to understand how things turned out, whereas we are doing it live. Truly, our thirst for projects to succeed and for concrete to be as perfect as possible is our core passion. As I am writing this in my hotel room, I recently left a meeting with my CTO and one of our unofficial business partners. We brought a large project to our business partner, and they asked us "I presume you want a finders fee for this project?" My CTO immediately said "no, we just want the project to be run smoothly." This is how we truly feel and operate, sometimes to our financial detriment. Unfortunately (from a financial standpoint), we leave money on the table because we do not try to sell the wrong system to a customer or make an extra buck on a project when we do not need to. We honestly, truly want concrete to be as flat, sustainable, and crack-free as possible, and that is our main goal. We get in our own way from being 10x more profitable. I am working extremely hard to change this, but as good leaders know, sometimes you must ask for help. So this is me, Michael, representing FST Design Build Concrete, asking for your help.
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