FRESMAK SA

Their core work

FRESMAK SA is a Spanish manufacturing SME based in Zarautz, in Spain's Basque Country industrial corridor, specialising in precision workholding and clamping systems for machining operations. Their defining innovation is the application of nanostructured materials to create gripping surfaces capable of securely holding geometrically complex or irregular workpieces — a persistent challenge in high-precision manufacturing. They successfully completed the full EU SME Instrument pathway, progressing from a Phase 1 feasibility study in 2015 to a Phase 2 market demonstration project (€1.37M) running through 2019, which signals a commercially-driven, market-ready orientation rather than pure research. Their work sits at the intersection of advanced materials science and industrial tooling.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

Both H2020 projects cover the same technology — TGRIP — so there is no thematic shift in subject matter, only a maturation of the same concept from feasibility to market demonstration. The Phase 1 project (2015, €50K) established proof of concept; the Phase 2 project (2017–2019, €1.37M) moved into full development and commercialisation preparation. No keyword data is available to detect finer-grained evolution within the technology domain itself, so any deeper claim about changing focus would be speculative.

FRESMAK appears to have been focused entirely on bringing a single high-value product to market; their trajectory points toward commercial deployment of TGRIP technology rather than diversification into new research lines.

How they like to work

FRESMAK ran both projects as sole coordinator under the SME Instrument scheme, which is specifically designed for single-company innovation — so the absence of consortium partners is structural, not a choice to avoid collaboration. This means there is no track record of multi-partner consortium work to assess. For any future consortium builder, FRESMAK would likely enter as a specialist technology provider rather than a consortium manager accustomed to coordinating multiple partners.

With zero recorded consortium partners across both H2020 projects, FRESMAK has operated entirely as a solo innovator under the SME Instrument scheme. There is no evidence of established international research or industry partnerships from their EU project history.

What sets them apart

FRESMAK is one of a small number of manufacturing SMEs to complete the full SME Instrument Phase 1 → Phase 2 journey with a single coherent technology concept, which speaks to both the robustness of the idea and the company's ability to execute. Their specific niche — applying nanostructured surface engineering to solve the workholding problem for complex geometries — is highly specialised and addresses a real bottleneck in precision machining sectors such as aerospace, automotive, and medical device manufacturing. A consortium looking for a Basque-region manufacturing technology SME with proven EU project execution and a market-stage materials innovation would find few direct equivalents.

Highlights from their portfolio

• TGRIP (Phase 2)
  With €1.37M in EC funding and a two-year demonstration timeline (2017–2019), this is the company's defining project — a full market-development push for their nanostructured gripping technology, representing 97% of their total H2020 funding.
• TGRIP (Phase 1)
  The €50K feasibility study that unlocked Phase 2 funding, demonstrating that FRESMAK's concept passed the rigorous SME Instrument evaluation — a competitive filter that rejects the majority of applicants.