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DE 
By Ulf Mallek
Radebeul. If you are old enough, you may remember pubs in the GDR with very special beer glasses. You could accidentally knock them off the table with your elbow and they wouldn't shatter. They were made of super-strength glass, manufactured in Kamenz from 1980 to 1990. More precisely: at VEB Sachsenglas Schwepnitz. "There was more likely to be a hole in the floor than the glass breaking," says Michael Heidan. Apparently, production was too expensive for the new owners after reunification, as it was quickly discontinued. In addition, the market was saturated and people wanted to buy "Western products".
Heidan was born in Radebeul. Although you wouldn't know it by looking at him, he is of an age to have drunk beer in the GDR. And one day he remembers the high quality of these miracle glasses. That day came when his wife wanted to open an online store selling glass products. Before that, he lived with his family in China and Stuttgart, producing car sunroofs for the high-end global market.
Heidan, now 58, is a qualified mechanical engineer, and his professional life to date has been spent in the fast-paced world of the automotive supply industry. His sunroofs achieved annual sales in the billions. But the idea of indestructible glass never left him. Yoghurt pots made of glass are much more aesthetic and sustainable than those made of plastic, which destroy the environment. And indeed, the urge to research glass became so strong in his mind that he quit his job as a car sunroof manufacturer and started all over again. Now, as Heidan discussed with his wife, we have the chance to create something really big. We can revolutionize the entire world market for glass, something like the company Apple in the glass industry. He told her that he could already see it before his eyes, the unicorn.
In search of the unicorn
Such a unicorn is something of a rarity among the many thousands of start-up companies in Germany. A valuation of at least one billion dollars is required for this title. There are said to be 36 unicorns in Germany, compared to just three last year. The translation tool Deepl is one of them. The solar company Enpal is also said to be a Unicorn. Quite well known are Flixbus and Trade Republica banking app.
Michael Heidan sought and found allies, very competent ones at that. About the Glass Museum Weißwasser and a former glass expert from Schwepnitz, he came across the Freiberg Mining Academy. The scientists there told him: "We have something even better." They claimed that what would take 24 hours to produce today, they could do in half an hour. And the glass is also extremely strong. That sounds like a revolution. And revolutions are rare in the very conservative glass market. "People from the glass companies have often told me that they don't want super-strength glass," says Heidan. Because then it wouldn't break again and they would sell less.
The Freiberg scientists put together a series of tests to prove their hypothesis. Chemically strengthened glass is currently only used for premium products - such as display glass for smartphones - because it is so expensive to produce. However, a water bottle made from this solid glass would really be a revolution. The bottle would be thinner, less energy would have to be used, production would be faster, it would be over 50 percent lighter and nothing would stand in the way of its mass use. In a test, the Freiberg scientists reduced the weight of a normal 0.7 liter water bottle from 620 grams to 234 grams. Heidan: "We are on the verge of a breakthrough innovation. Our technology has the potential." The Radebeul entrepreneur's new glasses could almost completely replace plastic in the food retail sector.
A lot of time and money invested
But first, Heidan and his colleagues at the university secured their new technologies with patents. They wanted to proceed step by step and not put all their eggs in one basket. They found their first customer, the company Heinz glass from Kleintettau near Coburg (Bavaria). They produce jars for the cosmetics industry. Heidan and his team developed a system for this company and had it built in Coswig by the company Glamaco (formerly VEB Glasmaschinenbau Coswig).
Heidan and a friend of his, Martin Herrmann, the owner of a private equity company from Frankfurt, founded 2MH Glas, which was a wholly owned subsidiary of ReViSalt and was merged into ReViSalt GmbH in July. "We invested money and time. I worked for three years without any income," says Heidan. At the same time, the Freiberg team developed a new regeneration material so that the salt, which is needed to solidify the glass at 400 degrees Celsius, can be used for much longer. For this purpose, the company Revisalt was founded. The five founders still hold 80 percent of the shares, with the remaining 20 percent being given to Technologiegründerfonds Sachsen, which had invested one million euros in the company. In addition, Revisalt received a further one million euros in credit from the company's bank, only 55 percent of which has to be repaid. The rest will be paid back by the Saxon Development Bank promoted.
Revisalt has won several awards for its technology over the years, including second place in the start-up category at the Saxon entrepreneur of the year 2024. In early summer, the Freiberg-based company was still running a small test system for the rapid strengthening of glass. In August, a larger one was installed, which can be used to strengthen glass up to 1.1 m in size. A new plant for the production of the regeneration material has just been put into operation, with which up to 20 tons of the new agent can be produced per year. "We see a large market for this," says Heidan.
Revisalt's business model, which currently has eight employees and a company valuation (2023) of five million euros, is based on three pillars: licensing the process for super-strength glass, which can be produced much faster, with less energy and at a lower cost, and the production and sale of regeneration material for salt baths in glass tempering, as well as research & development, testing, analysis and consulting.
If you walk through the company's halls in Freiberg's industrial estate, they are filling up more and more or are still sublet. According to Heidan's dream, how is a company worth billions to be created here? The global glass market is worth USD 110 billion per year. Half of production comes from China, 27 percent from Europe and 15 percent from North America.
In order to fulfill this dream, Revisalt is working on strategic partnerships with strong partners from the plant engineering sector to create the conditions for transferring these new technologies to the markets on a large scale.
Heidan, who has already been very successful with his sliding car roofs, firmly believes in success. "We will make it, we will turn the entire glass market upside down." And the super-tough beer glasses from the GDR era will certainly experience their second spring.
