IN Brief:
- Hexigone has secured £1.2 million through UKI2S, angel investment, and an Innovate UK grant.
- Its Intelli-ion technology activates when corrosion begins, supporting longer-lasting protective coatings at low dosage levels.
- Defence and naval applications highlight the growing need for sustainable materials that reduce maintenance burden without weakening asset protection.
Hexigone Inhibitors has secured a £1.2 million funding package to accelerate development and commercial deployment of its sustainable corrosion protection technology across defence, marine, and industrial markets.
The funding includes £500,000 from the UK Innovation & Science Seed Fund’s Defence & Security Seed portfolio, managed by Future Planet Capital and supported by the Ministry of Defence. Angel investors have contributed £300,000, while the investment has also unlocked a £400,000 Innovate UK grant to support the company’s anticorrosion technology.
Based in West Wales and supported by the Welsh Government, Hexigone is developing smart corrosion inhibitors designed to extend the life of metal assets while reducing reliance on anti-corrosives containing heavy metals or toxic substances. Its Intelli-ion technology is designed to activate when corrosion begins, helping protective coatings work for longer while using low dosage levels compared with traditional inhibitors.
Corrosion is a major defence maintenance burden. Naval vessels, offshore infrastructure, coastal facilities, vehicles, weapons handling systems, storage equipment, and industrial assets all operate in environments where salt, humidity, abrasion, temperature change, and chemical exposure attack metal surfaces. Protective coatings are therefore part of operational readiness, not a cosmetic layer.
The company will use the funding to support product development, international commercial scale-up, expansion into new markets, and work on circular economy manufacturing capabilities. That progression from materials innovation to industrial adoption is often the hardest stage for companies in this sector. Defence and marine customers need evidence that a technology performs across substrates, coating systems, repair methods, and service environments before it can enter routine use.
Traditional corrosion inhibitors have often relied on legacy chemistries that face growing environmental, regulatory, and occupational health pressure. Defence operators cannot simply accept weaker protection in the name of sustainability, yet they also face rising demand to reduce environmental impact. That creates demand for coatings technologies able to maintain durability while reducing hazardous content.
Patrick Dodds, founder and CEO of Hexigone, said: “Corrosion is a major global challenge, yet many traditional solutions rely on legacy chemistries that are less sustainable.”
“This investment enables us to accelerate commercial deployment of our technology, deepen our work across defence and industrial markets, and continue developing innovative solutions that reduce waste and improve material circularity.”
For coatings manufacturers, a corrosion inhibitor must fit into real production processes. It needs predictable dispersion, shelf life, dosage control, compatibility, and quality assurance. For end users, it must deliver reliable performance under harsh conditions and remain practical to apply, inspect, repair, and certify. Defence customers then add platform qualification, documentation, approved product lists, and long procurement cycles.
The Royal Navy’s interest reflects the scale of the maritime problem. Warships and support infrastructure operate in some of the harshest corrosion environments in the industrial world. Coating performance affects maintenance windows, dry-dock demand, crew workload, lifecycle cost, and platform availability. Even modest improvements can carry value if they reduce repair frequency or extend intervals between major coating work.
Paul Wilkinson, head of ventures at the Royal Navy, said: “Innovative technologies that improve the resilience, sustainability and operational performance of critical defence infrastructure are critical to the Royal Navy’s warfighting capability.”
Advanced materials companies such as Hexigone sit inside a broader UK supply-chain picture. The Henry Royce Institute’s new Materials Map places the UK materials sector at £49 billion in annual GVA and 635,000 jobs, showing the depth of the ecosystem behind aerospace, defence, nuclear, clean energy, and advanced manufacturing. Smaller materials companies often provide the enabling technologies that allow major assets to last longer, perform better, or meet tougher environmental requirements.
The same industrial-capability thread runs through the aerospace supply chain, where specialist production capacity such as Chester Hall’s precision manufacturing base is valued because it supports certified, high-performance systems. Materials innovation follows a similar route: discovery only becomes useful when it can be manufactured, qualified, supplied, and supported at scale.
Hexigone’s raise remains open for a further £300,000 to £500,000 to support the next phase of commercial growth. Additional capital would help the company move further along the route from technology development to wider market deployment.
Corrosion will remain one of the oldest engineering problems in naval and industrial defence. The opportunity now sits in reducing its cost, environmental burden, and operational disruption through materials that can survive harsh service while fitting into modern manufacturing and coating supply chains.
