In the iconic Division Street building between 9th and 10th Avenue, immediately recognizable for the living, breathing “Attitude of Gratitude” mural created by Fin DAC, we toured the offices of Solarcore, a materials technology brand that is developing some of the most advanced thermal solutions on the planet. Samantha Burdett, Solarcore’s Product Development Director, and Maddie Molloy, the Associate Marketing Manager, spoke about how the Portland-based company is changing the insulation game across industries.
Q: Let’s start here: What is Solarcore?
Samantha Burdett: Solarcore is a materials technology company. We create a super insulating foam and infuse it with NASA’s aerogel, the world’s smallest, most thermally insulating material. We have the license to put it into our foam.
Aerogel is between 95 and 98% air. When we incorporate it into our foam products, that air remains, even under compression. If you think about your downs and your big puffy jackets, it’s the air and the loft that’s giving you insulation. With aerogel and our foam, we’ve created a thin, durable solution that doesn’t shed or break down under compression.
Q: How are you applying that technology?
Burdett: We serve the consumer sector, which includes jackets, gloves, outdoor gear, and footwear.
We also work in the commercial sector with HVAC systems, batteries, et cetera. In November 2024, we came out with a fire retardant version of Solarcore foam, and that’s really broadened the market.
And then we have the government sector, which is its own beast, and also influences both of the other categories, as well. The government comes with different specifications and regulations, and sometimes they require different materials.
Q: Let’s back up for a second. How did the company start?
Burdett: The company started out here in Portland as Oros Apparel. In 2015, our founders, Michael Markesbery and Rithvik Venna, launched their first Kickstarter campaign for a cool jacket with their new insulation technology. Oros became a company in 2017. At that time, we sold insulated jackets, gloves, and hats. We were a private label brand, direct to consumer, online. We quickly gained interest from other companies, footwear brands and outdoor apparel, and we sold them some of our material.
It didn’t take long for us to realize that this was a lot bigger than a private label brand, so we transitioned into a direct-material technology B2B company in 2022.
Q: It sounds like things are changing pretty quickly!
Maddie Molloy: We’ve had significant growth over the last year or so. At the beginning of 2024, we had only 15 employees. Now, in May 2025, we’re at 23. So we haven’t quite doubled in the last year, but almost, and it’s been really exciting. Breaking into new industries, HVAC and energy, requires talent who have spent time in those industries. So we’re reaching out and outsourcing as we take on more projects and build more products, and need more people for support.
Burdett: As with any startup company, everyone wears multiple hats. So while our titles may describe the majority of what we do, they’re not everything. The Research and Development team works very closely on government contracts and the development of new materials. The Product team works closely with our Sales team and Research and Development, as well as Marketing, to help bring the end products to fruition.
We also create real visual assets to help people understand how they can use our products. It’s complicated, and helping the consumer understand how it can benefit them is our most important job.
Molloy: A big part of that is to share the aerogel story, because even though the material has been around for a long time, having cracked the code on how to use it in a bunch of applications and industries is new and a pretty significant breakthrough. Helping people understand aerogel helps people understand Solarcore.
Our tagline is “Solarcore: The Future of Insulation.” It comes back to the fact that we use the NASA’s aerogel differently. Other insulation solutions require loft to work. If you squish your down jacket, if you squish your down sleeping bag, it’s not working anymore. It doesn’t keep you warm. That is true across the board for other insulation solutions except for ours because of the way that we use aerogel.
That allows us to be a really good fit for lots of different applications, everything from underfoot and shoes to wrapping the ducts in your HVAC unit. It’s a cutting-edge, breakthrough material in the insulation industry. The insulation industry hasn’t seen this big an innovation in a long time.
Q: The company has come a long way from the Kickstarter campaign. Was this always the plan?
Molloy: Well, Michael and Rithvik met in college. The story goes that Michael was on a backpacking trip, climbing a mountain with all these jackets on—he was trying to stay warm, all layered up, and he felt like the Michelin man. He started wondering how there was so much technological advancement in the world but insulation remained so archaic. When he got home, he became obsessed with that question. In the process, he learned about aerogel, and he was lucky enough to get an astronaut scholarship through NASA, which gave him the ability to get his hands on the product.
Then, together, Michael and Rithvik started experimenting with aerogel, trying to figure out why nobody had ever used it before. What they found is that it’s extremely brittle. It breaks if it’s handled in any sort of way. Other companies had tried to use it, but they had issues with it flaking off and shedding. Eventually, Michael and Rithvik figured out how to infuse the aerogel into a closed-cell foam, which is what we do today. That makes it easy to work with. It’s flexible and durable, and it’s the first aerogel that functions in this way.
Q: And now you’re looking at different ways to use this technology?
Molloy: Exactly. Something that’s been really exciting for us in moving into new industries like energy and HVAC and government is that solving the insulation problem has really big benefits. In industries such as construction and energy, there are a lot of poorly-insulated components losing a ton of energy. If we can figure out how to properly insulate across these giant industries, we can actually make significant environmental impacts.
Insulation is a lot bigger and has more human impact than we initially realized. And now we’re figuring out how to solve all these problems.
Q: How has being in Portland influenced Solarcore’s trajectory?
Burdett: For a long time, Portland has been a hub for talent in the apparel and footwear industry—Rithvik and Michael both came here from Ohio to start Oros Apparel. You have all of these famous brands with headquarters and offices here, but it’s not a huge area so small companies can have a little bit bigger of a footprint.
Molloy: Being in Portland has been really important in building our core leadership team and drawing people from the outdoor industry. Our head of marketing spent time at Adidas and Columbia. We have people who’ve been at Nike and people from North Face. There are so many connections with Portland brands. Being in such a hub has allowed us to source incredible talent. Many folks have stayed with us as we’ve moved into this entirely different industry, and even now as we’re breaking into new sectors, their expertise and years of working in direct-to-consumer brands remains relevant.
Q: Is there anything that we haven’t talked about that you think people should know?
Burdett: No one solution is ever going to be the end-all, be-all, but if we can have a positive impact in multiple industries, that’s a big win. And it keeps us improving, too. We have different technologies coming along in the pipeline, and that’s super exciting.
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