Serpentine Ventures invests in smart socks

Unfitting shoes often lead to pain and foot injuries; however, the footwear industry still cannot sufficiently analyse the foot inside the shoe to find the cause of the pain points. ETH spinoff Capskin offers a unique solution with its sensor sock to measure pressure around the foot and foot movement inside the shoe. 3D pressure distribution is recorded and presented in real-time.

The Capskin sensor sock measurement system provides footwear designers with a cost-effective development cycle and access to relevant data, which will lead to entirely new insights for foot analysis in the shoe. “Our solution enables shoe manufacturers to compare prototypes, understand how well a shoe fits a particular foot, understand the impact of a particular design choice, and make more informed decisions about what makes good footwear”, explains Wolfram Schmidt, CEO of Capskin. By combining Capskin sensors with textiles, Capskin’s products can be present in hidden forms, including socks, gloves, sleeves, bras and T-shirts.

Together with a large pilot customer, the startup developed its prototype in 2021. This year the company is building external production capacity and plans to conduct projects with early adopters from different application areas in the footwear industry. The planned early adopter program will allow for generating feedback from footwear companies to support shoe development, conduct a gait analysis pilot, and build external manufacturing capabilities to guarantee stable quality. This phase will enable the company to create the ability to scale for the market launch next year. The company will offer its footwear development measurement system on a subscription basis to customers across the footwear market.

A new investment, which saw the participation of Serpentine Ventures, will enable Capskin with its core team of four members to execute the next steps, including launching the early adopter program. “Several companies are interested in participating in the early adopter program this year”, revealed Schmidt. To this day, the startup has raised capital amounting to CHF 700’000. DART Ventures and business angels have previously invested in the startup.

(RAN)