Newly merged Eberspächer Vairex makes new home in Lafayette

LAFAYETTE — Fresh of its 2021 merger with German automotive-component supplier Eberspächer Group GmbH, Boulder-born Vairex Air Systems (the trade name for Victori LLC), has moved into new digs in Lafayette and will now operate under the combined moniker Eberspächer Vairex. 

The organization celebrated the opening of its Boulder County headquarters, a roughly 12,500-square-foot flex space at 1391 Horizon Ave.

“We have a facility that matches the scale of our dreams,” Eberspächer Vairex CEO Ski Milburn told BizWest.

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Vairex, which was founded in 2009 and previously headquartered on Valmont Road in Boulder, develops and manufactures fuel-cell cathode air-compressors and related components that are used for emission-free forklifts and conveyor vehicles. 

As Eberspächer Vairex, the company plans to focus more of its efforts on hydrogen-fuel-cell technology, Eberspächer vice president Massimo Venturi said.

While supply-chain disruptions over the last several years affected Vairex, as they did with companies in so many industries, the COVID-19 pandemic presented an opportunity for the firm, which supplies fuel cells for the type of forklifts commonly used in warehouse and e-commerce distribution facilities, places that were all of a sudden much busier when most of the brick-and-mortar retail world quarantining 

The big players in e-commerce “all decided that fuel-celled forklifts were [beneficial] to scale their operations during COVID,” Milburn said. “Our business just exploded — literally doubled in six months.”

Increasing demand necessitated increasing production capacity. 

“We realized we were going to have raised a boatload of money” to expand production capacity, Milburn said. So Vairex began looking for partner companies with resources to help facilitate that expansion.

“The Germans are investing a lot of money in Colorado and in this building,” Milburn said. 

When the acquisition, terms of which have not been disclosed, closed about a year ago, Vairex was already outgrowing its Boulder facilities.

Major buyers of fuel-cell technology “would never touch us when we were 10 hippies in a garage,” Milburn said. “Now they’re all knocking on our door.”

The new headquarters building at 1391 Horizon Ave. is owned by Mojo Partners LLC, an entity registered to a Boulder address. 

Boulder County property records show Mojo bought the space in 2019 for $342,800.

Eberspächer Vairex has 17 employees in Lafayette and plans to grow that number to more than 30 by the end of the year. The hope, Milburn said, is to double the company’s headcount again in 2023.