• Cycling is a crucial mode of transport in the common European challenge of making transport sustainable: cycling is energy efficient, environmentally friendly and very suitable for short distances.
• The use of helmet is not widely accepted by urban cyclists due to practical reasons, they are uncomfortable, cumbersome to carry around, look hideous, make sweat and ruin personal style.
• Hövding presents a head protection for cyclists unlike any other product on the market – an airbag for cyclists. Our device, compared with traditional helmets, is more than three times better shock absorbance, can withstand multiple impacts in one accident, reduces head rotation, provides a much larger protection area and stabilizes head and neck in the accident. Hövding is discrete, works with a hat and easy to fold and carry in bag.
• Hövding has been sold during around 3 years. Now we focus on expanding from initial test sales in Sweden to successive rollout across Europe. However, some limitations such as our manual manufacturing process impede us to scale up our product and meet our growth ambitions.
• The overall objective of our business innovation project is to automatize the manufacturing process of our airbag for cyclists called Hövding with the aim of scale-up and reduce production costs. To this end, airbag will be designed and manufactured in one piece with woven seams eliminating the need of conventional sewing. We also want increase the added value of our airbag by adding Bluetooth Low Energy connectivity.
