EIC Accelerator Check: ThermoSiv and Its Greenhouse Heating Fabric

Thermo SIV Ltd, which markets itself as ThermoSiv, makes a yarn coated with a carbon compound that conducts electricity and gives off heat as far infrared radiation when woven into fabric. In the 9 January 2019 cut-off of the EIC SME Instrument Phase 2, the forerunner of the EIC Accelerator, it was selected together with San Hitech Ltd., a Haifa engineering firm, for AgrowFab, a project to turn the fabric into a heating and root-management system for greenhouses; the European Commission's list of winners gives each of the two companies its own row. San Hitech coordinated the project. Of the EU contribution of €1,349,290.25, ThermoSiv received €612,113.25 and San Hitech €737,177.00, according to CORDIS.

The project ran from 1 May 2019 to 31 March 2022. Its final report describes field pilots in Israel and Japan, a new controller and initial agreements with a manufacturer and a distributor. What it does not show, and what no later source shows either, is a commercial launch. The project website named on CORDIS, agrowfab.com, no longer resolves, and Israel's company register lists 2021 as the last year for which ThermoSiv filed an annual report.

Where ThermoSiv Stands Now

Israel's company register still lists Thermo SIV Ltd as an active private company, incorporated on 10 June 2003, according to the Israeli Corporations Authority's open data, updated on 7 October 2026, and OpenCorporates. The same register entry gives 2021 as the last year for which an annual report was filed and flags the company as a "violating company" (חברה מפרה). The Registrar of Companies can declare a company violating when it has not paid its annual fee, and can then refuse to register its filings and impose fines, as a lawyer explained in Bizportal. No liquidation or insolvency appears in the register.

Signs of business activity are sparse. The company website was last modified on 11 June 2025, according to the page's own metadata, and still describes AgrowFab as a project that "is developing" a greenhouse solution, three years after it ended. The profile on Startupim, updated in July 2026, calls ThermoSiv active and mature but cites no news. No press release, customer announcement, funding round or job advertisement from the last 12 months was found. With a live website but no filings since 2021 and no dated news, the company's status cannot be confirmed either way.

Even the company's location is inconsistent across sources. CORDIS lists the 2019 address as 9 Hayetsira Street in Or Yehuda; the register and the website give Adom 26 in the Kanot industrial zone; LinkedIn names Rosh HaAyin; Startupim names Be'er Tuvia. Staff figures disagree in the same way: Startupim gives 4 employees, the website names nine people, and LinkedIn puts the company in the 11 to 50 band.

How the Heating Fabric Works

ThermoSiv coats nylon yarn with what CORDIS calls "a proprietary non-metal carbon compound" that makes it electrically conductive. Woven into fabric, the yarn heats up when a current flows and radiates the heat as far infrared, warming objects close to it, such as plant roots or a car seat, rather than the air around them. The company says the fabric runs on anything from 2.4 volt batteries to 220 volt mains. A patent application assigned to Thermosiv Ltd, filed in August 2006 with Benjamin Resheff as inventor, describes a heating weave in which both warp and weft threads conduct, according to Justia; a 2020 WIPO search export lists three filings under the company's name, among them WO2007023493.

Greenhouses are usually heated with hot-water pipes, warm-air convection or radiant heaters, which, the grant description argues, heat the whole building instead of the crop and waste "up to 40%" of the energy. AgrowFab was meant to put the heat where the roots are: fabric under or around the growing beds, linked to a control unit that also manages irrigation and fertiliser. The project promised 35% higher yields, at least 40% less energy and 20% less pesticide, and said the fabric could also be used to sterilise soil, according to CORDIS and the CORDIS summary of the 2018 feasibility study.

Those figures come from the applicants. Later claims are larger and less consistent: the company website reports yield increases of 20 to 39% from its pilots, and a 2023 piece in Haaretz Labels, marked as promoted content produced in partnership with ThermoSiv, cites "a 250% increase" in cherry tomato yield. No independent or peer-reviewed trial of any of these numbers was found.

What AgrowFab Promised, and What CORDIS Shows

AgrowFab began as a 2018 SME Instrument Phase 1 feasibility study, CORDIS project 816524, which ran from 1 May to 31 August 2018. All of its €50,000 went to San Hitech; ThermoSiv is listed as a participant with an EU contribution of €0. In Phase 2, ThermoSiv's part of the budget was €874,447.50, of which the EU paid 70%.

The Phase 2 grant description set commercial targets for both companies together: cumulative revenue of €47 million within five years of commercialisation and 35 new jobs. The final periodic report, covering May 2021 to March 2022, says the consortium finished the fabric designs for tomato and squash beds, tested heating densities between 300 and 1,600 W/m², and built a local controller that adjusts heat to each bed's demand. Systems were installed in a nursery and a strawberry greenhouse in Israel and in tomato and broccoli nurseries in Japan, and in the last period in further strawberry and pineapple greenhouses in Israel.

The report also records "initial agreements" with an OEM manufacturer in Israel and a national distributor in Japan, preparations to scale up production at two plants, a new website and a planned presence at trade shows. Because of COVID-19, the partners developed a consumer product, a recycled planter kit with automated heating, irrigation and soil monitoring, which was "branded" with "an online launch plan" ready. Neither partner has named the manufacturer or the distributor, and no sign of the consumer kit going on sale was found.

1. Heating fabric for crop bedsDeliveredDesigns for tomato and squash, per the final report.
2. Root-zone control unitDeliveredLocal controller reported as fully developed.
3. Greenhouse pilotsDeliveredIsrael and Japan; also cited on the company website.
4. 35% yield, 40% energy savingUnverifiedNo measured results published.
5. Commercial launchNot achievedNo customer, distributor or product sale announced.
6. €47M revenue, 35 jobsNot achievedNo sign of either; no accounts public.

The project ended on its scheduled date. CORDIS publishes only the final period's report, last updated on 11 September 2022. The technical work is plausible and described in detail; the commercial part rests entirely on the consortium's own words and has no public follow-through.

What ThermoSiv Has Done Since

The company's public story since 2022 has moved from greenhouses to cars. The 2023 Haaretz Labels piece names the automotive industry as ThermoSiv's main focus, pitching the fabric for seats, steering wheels and dashboards of electric cars, where cabin heating cuts range in cold weather. The company website goes further: it says ThermoSiv "has successfully completed a General Motors (GM) funded R&D project" and that its yarn "is slated to be installed in GM EVs as of 2024". General Motors has not announced such a supplier, and no third-party source for the GM project or any installation was found, so the claim could not be verified.

Startupim lists a single grant of $1,300,000 from the Israel Innovation Authority in January 2019 as ThermoSiv's only funding. The authority's own records were not accessible, so the grant could not be confirmed. No equity round, outside investor, acquisition or merger is public. The 2019 Phase 2 awards were grants only, with no EIC equity on offer, and no source links ThermoSiv to the EIC Fund. CORDIS shows no other EU project for the company besides the two AgrowFab phases.

Leadership descriptions also vary. Wikipedia says David Agmon, a retired brigadier general who briefly headed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's bureau, has been "founder and CEO" of Thermosiv since 2005; the company website lists him as founder and CTO with Yoram Ilan as CEO, while its own military section still calls Agmon "Founder and CEO". The Haaretz Labels piece says the company was relaunched commercially in 2015 under Ilan.

Why It Matters for Europe

The EU's Farm to Fork strategy set a target of cutting the use and risk of chemical pesticides by 50% by 2030, according to the EUR-Lex summary of the strategy and IGCAT. A heating system that warms roots rather than air, runs on electricity that can come from renewables and claims to cut pesticide use speaks to both aims. But the EU money went to two Israeli companies, the pilots ran in Israel and Japan, and the report names no European grower, partner or plant. Whatever the technology achieved, no European deployment is on record.

The Verdict

ThermoSiv was a partner, not the coordinator, of AgrowFab; the coordinator, San Hitech Ltd., is covered in a separate article. ThermoSiv has not been asked for comment for this article. It is based entirely on public records and published statements, linked throughout.