Morpher - Folding Helmet
Morpher folding helmet: folds & unfolds quickly & simply. Patented worldwide. Multi-award winning.
- Location
- London, United Kingdom
Categories: Travel, Leisure & Sport Non-Digital Mixed B2B/B2C
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Investment
sought: - £600,003
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Equity
offered: - 11.75%
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Investment
amount: - £1,061,666
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Valuation
(pre-money): - £4,508,478
Idea
Introduction
Morpher is the world’s first flat-folding helmet.*
Morpher folds & unfolds quickly and simply, so it's perfect for cyclists who want to carry a helmet more easily. Patented in multiple countries around the world, Morpher has been designed to exceed all helmet safety standards and has been independently safety certified (CE1078 & CPSC).
Morpher is initially aimed at cyclists; especially those urban ones who find normal helmets too cumbersome to carry around all day. Other versions will be marketed to users of sports safety helmets (skiers, skaters, snow boarders, hockey players, horse riders, construction workers etc).
Morpher's flat-folding technology will also allow innovative selling methods, such as vending machines placed by major bicycle hire points. Morpher aims to give the world an unprecedented ease of access to cycle safety. At Morpher we also believe in a greener planet, so we ensure that our helmets and their components are made predominantly from recyclable materials.
Our mission is to build a strong and successful business with a viable and profitable exit, to create safety through innovation by encouraging the use of helmets where portability has been an issue and in doing so, save lives and prevent traumatic brain injuries.
*To the knowledge of the Morpher team.
Intended impact
As Planet Earth gets greener and fitter we’re cycling more and more. Almost 1000 cities around the world now have cycle sharing schemes, which are proving to be hugely popular. But very few of us non-bike owners are wearing helmets; according to research undertaken by Morpher, the main reason is that they are simply too cumbersome to carry around all day, especially if you may only be taking a short bike ride.
Morpher deals with this lack of portability in a brilliant yet simple way: It folds flat. This makes it easy for ANYONE to have a helmet with them. It can be kept in its own bag, in a handbag, a briefcase, a backpack, a laptop bag etc. It also means people can have a helmet handy on the off-chance that they may want to hire a bike for a journey. Long or short.
Another huge advantage of the flat shape is that Morpher can be stored and stocked more easily. We expect that bulk shipping costs will be around a third of current costs.
If our technology saves even one life then on many levels we will have become a success.
Substantial accomplishments to date
Morpher was awarded one of Time magazine's best 25 inventions of 2016. We also won the Edison Gold Award for Safety Innovation and were picked from thousands of ideas to win in the Popular Science Magazine's 2014 Invention Awards. These are some of our incredible accolades and have led to a great deal of interest and demand from around the world.
A crowdfunding campaign on Indigogo had a $35,000 target but so far has raised almost $400,000, which is more than 11 times the original target.
We have granted and pending patents in many strategically selected countries around the world.
We have shipped over 4,000 units around the world and have received tremendous feedback from a huge proportion of our users.
We already have distributors in USA, Japan, Israel, Korea, Denmark, and Belgium. We have also made sales to the UK & other territories. We have also sold into QVC, where we sold out on our first airing.
We have a licensing deal with Strategic Sports, one of the world's leading helmet manufacturers which gives us an instant worldwide distribution network.
Monetisation strategy
Our primary objective is to become the de facto standard in folding helmet technology. One goal is to grow Morpher technology to the point where many major helmet brands offer a folding helmet option using Morpher technology within their ranges.
Our philosophy is to grow and protect the Morpher brand so that we become a byword for portable safety helmets.
The Morpher brand will initially be aimed at casual cyclists using urban bike schemes as well as commuters and other cyclists. It will eventually be directed towards snow sports, security, the military and other activities where safety helmets are used.
The safety helmet industry is growing fast. Urban bike schemes are too. Morpher is poised to be at the forefront of portable safety helmet technology.
Income will be from factory royalties as well as our own sales. Obviously, the IP is an asset that will boost the value of the company when we eventually exit.
Use of proceeds
The funding will be used primarily for new product development, associated IP, production tooling, stock, marketing, sales, and working capital.
We've assembled highly experienced team who are creating a solid foundation to develop the potential of Morpher technology across a wide range of helmet markets.
We will continue to market the brand primarily using carefully targeted marketing, PR, and social media campaigns. We are already near the top of Google when looking for "folding helmets".
A large part of our remit will be to help increase public awareness of the need to wear helmets when participating in potentially hazardous activities.
We have plans for some extremely interesting electronic and wearable technology to be used with Morpher helmets. Some of the funds will be used to license these technologies.
Please note that there are outstanding loans totalling £121,200 from existing shareholders. These will not be repaid from the proceeds of this fundraise.
Market
Target market
People are cycling more than ever: in Europe and the USA more bicycles are now being sold than cars!
And there are now over 900 bike-share operations in cities around the world with more than 160 million riders, according to our calculations and Wikipedia. This is a massive market and one that is relatively simple to target yet Morpher is not just aimed at these schemes, it is also aimed at all other cyclists. And skaters. And Snow Sports. And emergency services. And the military. Oh, and the construction industry. And of course, we mustn't forget kids.
It's aimed at those who wear helmets now as well as those who never have.
More than 100 million people ride bikes in the US each year and worldwide there are currently 130 million bikes sold per year.
More than 200 million e-bikes have been sold, a figure which is expected to rise to 2 billion by 2050. Due to the higher average speeds of e-bikes it seems probable that helmets may become compulsory for them before they become compulsory for bicycles.
It has been very hard to ascertain the total size of the cycle safety helmet marketplace as figures have not been compiled by any major Market research organisation. Whatever the accurate figure is, there is little doubt that it is climbing as both sales of bicycles and associated safety awareness increase.
In addition, there are up to 180 million construction workers worldwide, which is another market we intend to target.
Snow sports had an estimated 32m participants during the 2014/5 season.
Safety at ski resorts is a priority and helmet usage is rising incredibly quickly.
Morpher is the world's first fold-flat EPS helmet to our knowledge and the fact that it can fit into most laptop bags or backpacks makes it a natural product for commuters as well as snow sports enthusiasts. We hope it will appeal to anyone that finds helmets too cumbersome to carry around.
Characteristics of target market
Morpher helmets will of course retail at a premium over existing medium to high-quality helmets. Morpher will receive a 10% royalty for all license sales made by the manufacturer.
Some years back, I was involved in an accident. I was hit by a car and thrown off my bike at pretty high speed. I flew through the air (stylishly) and landed head first on a curb stone (a bit less stylishly). I broke my shoulder, smashed my chin, broke a couple of ribs... and if it wasn't for my helmet I would almost certainly have died... or been seriously brain damaged.
School children, in particular, are generally loath to carry helmets because they won't fit into the backpacks that they use to carry their books around. Morpher overcomes this problem as, when folded, it is less than 25% of the width of a standard helmet, allowing it to slide easily into a school backpack along with books.
All our research suggests that the market is growing at a huge rate. There is an unprecedented surge in bicycle share schemes and increasing pressure, some mandatory, to wear helmets.
During our research, we found that 85% of cyclists claim that they don't wear helmets because they are too cumbersome to carry all day on the off chance of needing one.
Snow sports helmet use is increasing dramatically with many resorts, especially in the US, insisting that skiers wear helmets. These are a pain to travel with and Morpher flat profile will solve many of the portability issues.
Marketing strategy
We have been in discussion with TfL, and they are keen to explore the possibility of including Morpher helmets in their offering at some point.
We are also in discussions with Motivate, who operate 10 bike share schemes in major cities in North America.
Our Indegogo crowdfunding campaign had a target of $35,000 but so far we have sold almost $400,000 to Indiegogo contributors. The response to the thousands we have delivered has been astonishingly good. This traction will help us to launch other crowdfunding campaigns. It has also helped to bring us many distribution inquiries from all around the world. We have already done deals with Israel, the USA, Japan, Korea, and are currently negotiating with others, including Brazil.
Jeff Woolf has been selling products on QVC in the UK and US since the mid-1990’s. Morpher is a tremendous product for QVC as it is demonstrable, simple, potentially lifesaving and innovative and QVC have already launched Morpher. We believe this will help to encourage pull from consumers and will demonstrate the considerable benefits of the Morpher helmet over standard non-folding helmets. QVC in the UK reaches around 24 million homes. If the product is successful here then we plan to show the product on QVC in Italy, Germany, Japan, China and the USA.
Strategic Sports, our manufacturer, exhibits at many of the world’s major bicycle shows and will promote the Morpher concept to its existing customers as well as use the concept to try to gain new ones.
We plan to tie in with large corporate sponsors to help to subsidise and market helmets to bike share riders.
Our helmets are available for sale through our own website and we plan to sell on Amazon very shortly.
Finally, we believe that there is a large corporate market whereby firms can offer branded Morphers to staff.
Competition strategy
There are other "folding" helmets on the market but these are all very flawed as none fold flat to our knowledge.
The flat-folding ability of Morpher is what really sets us out from the competition and is our core value proposition. Our patent is strong and already granted in many territories meaning that we have strong and comprehensive protection.
Morpher is especially complex to make as it currently consists of more than 120 parts and has taken one of the world's finest helmet manufacturers almost 4 years to perfect. This complexity in itself is a tremendous barrier to entry for competitors. Our comprehensive suite of IP is obviously another!
The other "folding" helmets retain a bulky and cumbersome shape and also are complex to open and close. Morpher, on the other hand, is extremely simple and quick to operate.
Unlike traditional helmets, Morpher can be easily vended from major bicycle hire points and this is another area that we are looking at in detail.
As a result of our awards and the resulting publicity, Morpher already has tremendous traction and as such, has excellent global awareness.
We have identified several key players that we'll approach as we move forward for possible partnerships and collaborations.
I believe that we will be changing the behaviour of many people who were simply not willing to consider wearing a helmet in the past because of the bulk, inconvenience and lack of portability.
We have many exciting plans which we expect will ensure the long term dominance in this important new safety arena.
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