The startup ATO-Gear has been working with the sports brand Adidas since last month. In Adidas selected stores, runners can test the brand’s new running shoe with the intelligent Arion insole. The runners receive an analysis of their running style on paper. Such as foot appearance, cadence, body weight. This collaboration is an upswing after a challenging summer, says CEO Andrew Statham.
Statham talks about working with Adidas
About two years ago, ATO-Gear came into contact with Adidas. This contact was mainly informative. ATO-Gear focus on innovation and professional analysis to improve mileage goes well with the creation of Adidas Ultraboost 19, said Valentijn Bouman, senior brand communications brand at Adidas. For the brand new running shoes of the sports brand, the company has decided to forget about running, explains Bouman. This model has been developed with feedback, data and test data from thousands of runners around the world combined with scientific research. The cooperation with Arion (ATO-Gear) fits this development.
In store runners can have a full analysis done. Runners data is analyzed promptly and people get a personal report to take home. This allows them to improve their running technique.
Prototype
According to Statham everything is going very fast now. This collaboration with Adidas. And they have developed a new prototype that is more on the health side. Together with Sportplein Eindhoven they have started a project that investigates whether this technique can be used to treat rehabilitating athletes. For this project, the startup receives a subsidy from Metropoolregio Eindhoven. With the intelligent outsold, the startup wins prizes and within a year, around one thousand pairs of deposits were sold worldwide. The team expanded to England. ATO-Gear has also had talks with investors and manufacturers in Asia. Nevertheless, the summer of 2018 was very challenging, says Statham. The fundraising had to go well and it did within twenty-four hours the amount was collected.
ATO-Gears won tickets to Shanghai during XL Day pitching. After consulting HighTechXL last December, Statham and co-founder Jurgen van den Berg did not fly to Shanghai but to Taiwan and Hong Kong. There were already contacts there. For example with a manufacturer from Taiwan. Who will produce the new prototype that ATO-Gear designed here in the Netherlands? They had contact regarding the design by email and telephone. During the visit, the final details were discussed to produce the prototype. The first copy came last month.
Potential investors in Asia
This prototype and the project with Sportplein are long term, Statham continues. Investments are needed in the short term to be able to run the production. The deposits are in demand, but there are no more stocks in stock. The visit to Asia also brought suppliers and manufacturers to ATO-Gear for greater production. In the Netherlands, production is high quality but quite expensive, Statham explains. They want to add to this production by making larger quantities more cheaply. The production in Asia has to be transported by ship to the Netherlands. This takes time, so they need this local supplier for short-term productions.
Eindhoven based startup ATO-Gear is working with sports brand Adidas to help people perform better with the intelligent Arion sole. Statham talked to potential investors in Asia and there were some interested parties, the Englishman says hopefully. Perhaps this will enable the necessary investments in the coming months. It is important for investors to have the same vision for the company, Statham believes. They are looking for someone who can help them with their current growth and is on the same wavelength as the future. For the near future, this is mainly the running world.
Also published on Medium.