Our Story

We are Matter Surfaces – an old friend with a new name. We’re your partner for design flooring and entrance systems. We believe in the power of Good Design. Thoughtful Good Design beautifies the world, enhances our health, and protects the environment.

Wellness

True wellness is holistic – encompassing person and planet. Material decisions for interior spaces often dictate caring for both. Entrance systems are your first line of defense when creating spaces that enhance wellness. Once inside, design flooring choices throughout a space have a substantial impact on both human and planet health. These topics are complex, and solutions often offer contradictions, but we’re committed to helping you make the right choices.

Design

Design, in all its forms, is one of the primary engines for change in our society. Wellness cannot be achieved without the right design choices. Good Design moves and motivates change through discourse, beauty, and manifestation.

Service

We take service seriously. Service starts with transparent information and context. Some people passively push information, while some aggressively edit to fit a narrative. We parse and curate in partnership with our clients so they can confidently make decisions for their projects. And when decisions are made, we make sure we deliver. Global logistics is one of our specialties, and we have warehouses throughout the country to process and ship materials as fast as the world allows. (Sometimes faster!)

Peek at our history below, and then peruse our brands and collections. We have thoughtfully selected design solutions for every major market segment.

Our History

1971

Matter Surfaces got our start in 1971 as Mats Inc., a family-owned company selling entrance mats throughout the Greater Boston area. Founders Bob and Catherine Schiffmann spent the next decade building a vast portfolio of entrance solutions and the strong vendor and client relationships for which we're still known today.

1980-99

Matter Surfaces continued on a growth and expansion trajectory. We welcomed the second generation of the Schiffmann family to our leadership team, opened a second warehouse location, expanded our sales team across the country and diversified our product portfolio.

Never losing sight of our expertise in entrance solutions, Matter Surfaces broadened our product offering to serve the whole-facility needs of our clients. In the early 90s, we introduced sports flooring and contract flooring products.

Today, our sports flooring portfolio is known as the Play Collection and includes rubber fitness tiles, multi-purpose court flooring, logo matting and wood flooring protection. Our contract flooring is known as the Formative Collection and includes Formative 2.5 glue-down LVT, Formative Clic click-together LVT and Formative Sheet vinyl roll.

Throughout the 80s and 90s, we focused on building the world-class service organization and unmatched global planning and logistics team for which we still pride ourselves to support our growing portfolio and client base.

2000-20

With much of our previous success built on our partnerships, Matter Surfaces turned our focus to strengthening key partnerships and curating new ones to provide our clients with quality, dependable and sustainable products.

In 2004, Matter Surfaces partnered with award-winning, European design house Bolon. Bolon’s designs deliver the beauty of woven textile with the benefits of resilient flooring, and their portfolio encompasses an expansive range of design possibilities for indoor, controlled outdoor, wallcovering and area rug applications.

In 2014, we partnered with wineo PURLINE to introduce the first-of-its-kind bio-polyurethane based products to the North American market. The PURLINE commercial flooring portfolio includes sheet goods, large-scale tile formats and a range of plank layouts to create limitless design combinations.

Most recently in 2020, Matter Surfaces partnered with Parador Modular ONE. Designed with indoor wellness and environmental stewardship at its core, Parador Modular ONE offers the warmth and beauty of wood or stone with performance qualities previously only found in conventional resilient flooring materials.

2021

Proud of the successful legacy that the Schiffmann family created and with an eye to the next 50 years, Mats Inc is now Matter Surfaces - a new architectural surfaces brand dedicated to design, wellness and sustainability, and elevated customer experiences.