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| Shamil Hargovan and Louis-Victor Jadavji, Founder of Wiivv |
Wiivv Wearable Inc., a Vancouver, BC company that has developed software to
mass-produce custom insoles on 3-D printers, has raised venture capital
from
Evonik Industries, a €12.9 billion-a-year specialty chemicals
company based in Germany.
Evonik's minority investment was made jointly with Formation 8, a financial investor headquartered
in Silicon Valley, and Real Ventures, Canada's largest and most active
seed investor. The parties have agreed not to disclose the amount
invested. Starting in fall 2015, Wiivv will use 3-D printing to produce
biomechanically optimized insoles adapted to the specific needs of the
individual customer.
Wiivv is trying to wedge itself into the under-developed market
between cheap drugstore insoles and podiatrist-designed pairs, which can
cost upwards of $500. “We’re trying to bring that level of access,
where you’re not needing to go to a practitioner of any sort,”said
Louis-Victor Javadji, the Vancouver-based co-founder of the company.
Wiivv
is among the first companies to apply 3-D printing in individualized
mass production; the technique has so far been used primarily for
production of prototypes and in small production runs. Downstream, the
start-up plans to integrate electronic sensors into the insoles that
allow dynamic data to be continuously recorded. This will enable
optimization of movement sequences, such as in professional sport, and
produce movement profiles that, for example, measure and predict the
degree of fatigue of industrial workers. The global market volume for
insoles is estimated at about €4 billion. In the US it is currently
growing at between four and five percent per year.
For
production, Wiivv uses polyamide 12 from Evonik in the SLS (Selective
Laser Sintering) 3-D printing process. Evonik is a leading global
producer of polyamide 12 for 3-D printing. "Wiivv’s business is an ideal
match for Evonik," said Dr. Bernhard Mohr, head of Venture Capital at
Evonik. "Through our investment in Wiivv, we’re supporting the market
launch of one of the first individualized mass-produced articles to be
manufactured by 3-D printing. This also gives Evonik access to the
highly innovative growth market for wearables, which are electronics
worn on the body."
Shamil Hargovan, one of the founders of Wiivv,
said about the transaction, "We're delighted to have gained in Evonik a
strategic investor with extensive technical and materials science
expertise in 3-D printing with polyamide 12."
Large production
runs in 3-D printing are made possible by special software that Wiivv
has developed in collaboration with biomechanics researchers. Using
photographs, this software translates the individual properties of a
foot into the three-dimensional form of biomechanically optimized
insoles and transforms this into printing data that the 3-D printer can
immediately process. Wiivv currently manufactures products at its
production facility and state-of-the art R&D lab in San Diego, CA.
The
innovation from Wiivv reduces design and development time of printable
3D models from several hours to seconds. Just three photos taken by the
customer on their mobile phone and sent to Wiivv suffice to calculate
the printing data. A further advantage is that for fabrication of
individual consumer products, the start-up can use an automated 3-D
printing process instead of the conventional, extremely labor-intensive,
manual method.
Evonik plans to invest a total of €100 million in
highly promising start-ups with break-through technologies and leading
specialist venture capital funds as part of its venture capital
activities. These investments will focus on Europe, the U.S. and Asia.
Evonik currently has holdings in five startups and three funds.
Evonik
focuses on the key megatrends health, nutrition, resource efficiency
and globalization. The company is active in over 100 countries around
the world. In fiscal 2014 more than 33,000 employees generated sales of
around €12.9 billion and an operating profit (adjusted EBITDA) of about
€1.9 billion.
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