Montgolfier

The Montgolfier (モンゴルフィエ) is a company, introduced in the First Year Arc of Toaru Kagaku no Railgun, which was active in Academy City one year before the main story.

Etymology
The company's name is the family name of the, French aviation pioneers and paper manufacturers, who invented a hot air balloon which launched the first confirmed human piloted ascent in 1783, as well as inventing the self-acting hydraulic ram and a process to manufacture transparent paper.

Principles
The Montgolfier company developed quantum cryptography and claimed to be working toward mechanically reproducing esper powers, though they had little success with no records of any finished products being sold.

Background
According to their finances, the company was heavily invested in from an unidentified source for some time. They have a large facility in School District 10, not necessary for testing ordinary products, and hired a large number of former Anti-Skill with combat experience. Mibuki Kazan of Hasekura Clique suspected that the esper reproduction product is a front to hide unregistered work in the military industry.

First Year Arc
While investigating a possible external mastermind behind the clique conflict, Hasekura, Sha, and Kessai were under attacked by two people in suits. The group retreated soon afterwards, but their bullet was left in the field. Sha read the residual thoughts on the attacker's weapon (with the lack of residual thoughts indicating that it wasn't made with an esper ability) and found that the target was Hasekura. After the incident, the members of Hasekura clique found that the Montgolfier company was the only institute within range, and their preliminary findings supported their suspicions that Montgolfier used their prototype weapon to trick the cliques into fighting and gathered research data. The whole group of Hasekura clique and Ruri visited the company's headquarters to investigate the possible culprit.