Promethient, the Traverse City startup whose heated and cooled seats were implemented as a premium seating option at Comerica Park last spring, has had a big year. In addition to the Detroit Tigers launch, Promethient’s technology has now proliferated to multiple other major league sports parks throughout the United States, and even garnered on-the-air praise from actor Tom Selleck. Now, Promethient is marking a new milestone: the launch of an office furniture subsidiary, with manufacturing potentially centered right here in northern Michigan.

Founded locally in 2017, Promethient specializes in what it calls “human-scaled climate control.” The company’s flagship product, trademarked under the name Thermavance, combines graphene – a one-atom-thick layer of graphite, known for its incredible tensile strength, flexibility, and efficient heat conductivity – with thermoelectric heat pump devices. The resulting material can be sewn into virtually anything – be it a car seat, a garment, or a piece of military equipment – and then heated or cooled electrically. The idea is to heat or cool the human body via touch, which is more effective and efficient than heating or cooling via air.

Over the years, Promethient has made headway in multiple sectors, including the marine industry (where boat manufacturers like Skier’s Choice, Moomba, and Bennington have incorporated Thermavance into certain models) and sports seating (starting with the Lindner Family Tennis Center in Mason, Ohio, home of the Cincinnati Open tennis tournament). Last year, Promethient scored its biggest win yet: a partnership with the Detroit Tigers and Figueras, a manufacturer of high-end seating solutions based in Barcelona, Spain, to bring heated and cooled seats to the new Home Plate Club at Comerica Park. Ilitch Holdings, the team’s parent company, touted the installation as an “first-of-its-kind” offering in major league sports.

According to CEO Bill Myers, Thermavance’s presence at Comerica Park quickly opened the floodgates for Promethient.

“In the stadium sector, since late 2024, we’ve done the Tigers, the New York Mets, and the Cleveland Guardians,” Myers says. “We did our first installation for the Seattle Seahawks last summer, and then we got a follow-up order and will be doing a much larger installation this summer. And then we also received our first order from a college football team, the University of Missouri, that we'll be installing shortly.”

The success is also allowing Promethient to spread its wings a little wider, hence the company’s pursuit of the office furniture market.

“The way we’re positioning it is that our original business, which is Thermavance, is going to continue focusing on outdoor thermal comfort – so stadium seating, boats, etc.” Myer tells The Ticker. “But what we realized is that there's a great opportunity for indoor thermal comfort, as well.”

Promethient formally announced the launch of ThermaXis, a new subsidiary brand, at NeoCon 2026, a commercial interior design trade show held last month in Chicago. The new brand specializes in “advanced heating and cooling technologies that can be integrated into office seating solutions or offered as an aftermarket solution compatible with many of today's most popular task chairs,” according to a press release.

“We want to resolve the wars over the office thermostat,” Myers says. “In a workplace, you’ll often see some people with space heaters and other people with fans. Thermostats rarely make everybody happy. If you can do more heating or cooling through the seat, you solve that problem, and then you can also pull back on the demands for the HVAC system in the building, which means you save a lot of energy.”

ThermaXis will also mark Promethient’s first foray into the direct-to-consumer market. Up until now, the company has provided its technology to original equipment manufacturers, which then build it into their seats or vehicles. While Promethient is working with an office seating manufacturer that will integrate the heating and cooling technology directly into its next office chair design, ThermaXis will also exist as an “aftermarket thermal cover that goes over an existing office chair and allows you to have battery-powered heating and cooling.”

“That’s the product we introduced last month at NeoCon, and everybody that saw it loved it,” Myers says of the aftermarket solution. “We're pursuing a very aggressive launch timeline to get this out into the market in early 2027, and we've already delivered prototypes to some early customers that want the technology.”

Promethient’s entry into the direct-to-consumer market also means something else: The company may soon need to ramp up its in-house manufacturing capabilities, which could end up rooted in northern Michigan.

“We've got two options,” Myers says. “We can ship the heart of the system to a contract manufacturer to have them build it. Or, we could build the whole thing here in Traverse City. We’re still debating the best path, but we're definitely poking around in TC. There have certainly been companies here over the years that have employed a lot of people that do what is essentially sewing work, and that’s big, because we're going to have to have covers that are that are manufactured in fairly high quantities. So, we’re trying to determine: Is that something that we can scale effectively here in Traverse City? Or is that something we'd be better off doing down in the Grand Rapids area, where there’s a big furniture industry already?”

One thing Promethient will be able to point to as it launches into a new market? A surprise celebrity endorsement. Each August, the Tigers host a “Magnum P.I. Day” at Comerica Park to honor actor and Michigan native Tom Selleck. At last year's Magnum P.I. Day, one of the first things Selleck mentioned in his interview with broadcasters was Comerica Park's Thermavance-equipped Home Plate Club.

“I got to sit in those front seats,” Selleck said. “God, they’re great.”

Pictured: Attendees at NeoCon 2026 try of Promethient's new ThermaXis seat cover.