Living Canopies Ltd offers the means to easily transform outdoor rooms and hardscaped patio spaces into green oases with its patented Living Furniture.
The company currently sells the Living Umbrella®–an easy, smart and environmentally friendly way to grow fruits, vegetables or beautiful flowering vines above your head to provide shade, food, and cooler temperatures. The Living Umbrella® also helps reduce stormwater flows with its integrated cistern, creates pollinator habitat, and reverses the urban heat island effect. It is also more environmentally friendly than old-fashioned fabric umbrellas because its plants remove carbon from the atmosphere and minimize the generation of plastic textile waste.
Clients love the Living Umbrella® because it promotes environmental benefits, supports green branding, inspires guest loyalty, and excites people, which old-fashioned umbrellas can’t do. Old-fashioned umbrellas retain heat, blow away easily, and are literally dead upon arrival–destined for the landfill in few short years. The Living Umbrella® is a conversation starter; a biodynamic centerpiece for any patio; and its canopy is compostable.
The Living Umbrella® is based on technology developed at the University of Maryland by co-founders, Dave Tilley and Nick Cloyd. The intellectual property is patent pending in the U.S. and European Union, which covers the living umbrella structure, smart-solar irrigation system and plant grow-out method. Living Canopies owns the global, exclusive license to commercialize the technology.
TEAM BIOS:
Dave Tilley, CEO. Dave is the co-founder and CEO of Living Canopies. As a green entrepreneur and professor of ecological engineering his professional mission is to develop ecotechnologies that inspire peoples’ love of nature and makes the human-nature relationship more symbiotic. He invented the Living Umbrella technology based on an epiphany he had while suffering the extreme heat of a Las Vegas pool deck in 2015. Dave spreads the power of environmental entrepreneurship with every chance he gets. He developed a new college course, Ecological Innovation and Entrepreneurship, to encourage students interested in turning their ideas into impact. He is a National Science Foundation Innovation-Corps fellow and member of the University of Maryland’s Academy for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Dave is focused on making Living Canopies a success. He oversees product development, marketing and sales, customer relations, and the finances. (
LinkedIn)
Nick Cloyd, VP of Technology. Driven to rethink traditional man-made solutions to societal issues, Nick aspires to create a world more connected with the nature surrounding us. His love and passion for all things “environmental” started as a child which he expressed through a love of the outdoors, sports, fishing, boating, surfing, snowboarding, and hiking. This passion grew into a career path as he pursued a Master’s Degree in Environmental Science and ultimately a founding role in two environmentally motivated start-up companies. Through his college years, Nick held an Engineering Technician position at a machine shop which gave him hands-on experience creating and building research equipment to help solve problems. For Nick, Living Canopies Ltd is a creative, educational, and business outlet for his passions and goals. To date, the team has developed a Master’s Thesis, two pending patents, and sales traction for the Living Umbrella™. With a team that is driven to deliver innovative, naturally evolved shade solutions Living Canopies Ltd aims to become the industry standard for Living Furniture. (
LinkedIn)
