The story
Toyobo was established in 1882 by Shibusawa Eiichi as a cotton-spinning company in a context of post-Meiji Restoration. By the 1930s, Toyobo was the world's largest cotton-spinning company. In the 1960s, the company started to manufacture synthetic fibers and films.
In August 2013, Toyobo bought the Spanish company Spinreact for €22.3 million euros.
In 2015, Toyobo provided 40% of the yarn for airbags worldwide, and 50% of Japan's food packaging films. In March 2017, Toyobo introduced Cocomi, a t-shirt that tracks a driver's heartbeats and activates an alarm if somnolence is detected. In August 2017, Toyobo established a new group in Europe, Toyobo Chemicals Europe GmbH, with a focus on marketing specialty chemical products, and a new manufacturing base for airbag fabrics.
In March 2018, Toyobo paid $66 million to settle a case of defective bulletproof vests sold to the US Government between 2001 and 2005.
From Wikipedia’s article on Toyobo, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.5