Washington Business Summer 2019 | Washington Business | Page 43

washington business
Khan spoke to Washington Business by phone from Hong Kong, where he
has been based since last August, to be closer to his customer base in athletic
shoe manufacturing.
He talked about his unconventional route to manufacturing, what
Lamborghinis have to do with carbon fiber shoes, and what he wishes he
could tell his younger self.
an unconventional beginning
When he started college, Khan planned to go into sports medicine (his father
is a doctor), but later changed his major to economics. After graduation
and his first experience in banking, he decided he wanted to do something
different and moved back home.
He had always loved cars growing up, and began working in the high-end
car industry, mostly in sales and marketing. He had the idea for traveling
regional car demonstrations for Lamborghinis and other high-end cars.
He became fascinated with the manufacturing side of the business,
particularly the advanced materials, which led to a job in the Tri-Cities.
That’s where he began the work in 2010 that turned into Carbitex.
“When I realized how relatively new carbon fiber was in the greater scheme
of materials, honestly, I just started tinkering in the garage,” Khan said.
born in the garage
The garage contained a small oven, a small press (think of the kind used to
put decals onto T-shirts), some hand tools, things to mix materials, and small
tables to cure and process.
“The premise essentially was, carbon fiber is this advanced material, it’s
still new. I think we can harness its properties in a different way. Let me just
try to prove that.”
At one point in the prototyping process, they were running a homemade
oven overnight.
“There are few things more concerning than running an industrial oven
that you’ve made yourself without any engineering background overnight in
a facility that you’re renting,” Khan said with a laugh.
about carbitex
Carbitex focuses on flexible carbon fiber
technology. Typically carbon fiber is very rigid
(think airplane fuselage or hockey stick). Carbitex
harnesses the same high-performance properties
but in flexible form. Carbitex has four patents with
another six pending.
Originally eyeing vast potential markets in
consumer electronics, fashion, aerospace, oil and
gas, and more, the company has since focused on
providing material for other industries to use in
their own products. For now, they’re zeroed in on
the footwear industry, but will add other markets
in the future.
The company’s three main product lines are CX6,
a highly flexible replacement for leather; AFX,
which is asymmetrically flexible (stiff in one
direction, flexible in the other); and DFX, which is
dynamically flexible, changing stiffness as needed.
With their unique flexibility properties, AFX and
DFX go into the mid-sole of a shoe. That offers the
protection of a hiking boot, but lighter and thinner
and more supportive — and with the ability to flex
like a sneaker when the foot is bent.
Carbitex has 18 employees and is in the process of
scaling up “a couple orders of magnitude” from its
current output.
summer 2019 43