Leisure Care to Provide 3D Printed Insoles to All Employees via FitMyFoot

IMTS

Share this Article

Custom orthotics are just one killer app for consumer and medical additive manufacturing (AM), with SmarTech Analysis projecting it as part of a segment that will reach nearly $1 billion in revenues by 2030 in its  “Medical Devices 2021: Market Opportunities for 3D Prosthetics, Orthotics and Audiology Devices” report. Demonstrating the traction that the sector is getting is FitMyFoot. The company has recently partnered with Leisure Care to provide custom 3D printed insoles to all of the employees of the assisted living leader.

FitMyFoot began as Wiivv Wearables with seed funding that led to an extremely successful crowdfunding campaign. It since evolved into a leading manufacturer of custom insoles. By using the FitMyFoot smartphone app, customers are able to quickly scan their feet and order their very own pair of 3D printed, personally tailored orthotics, delivered within two weeks.

Through its partnership with Leisure Care, the company is furthering its influence in the business-to-business space. Leisure Care, owned by the One Eighty hospitality company, describes itself as “one of the [USA’s] largest privately held retirement and assisted living companies.” The company is now providing each of its roughly 3,000 staff members with 3D printed insoles, potentially offering relief from foot pain to workers who are on their feet regularly attending to the needs of seniors.

 “When we met with the good folks at FitMyFoot, we knew we had a great opportunity to help our team,” said Dan Madsen, CEO of Leisure Care. “Our staff spend a great deal of time on their feet, providing care for those entrusted to us. Providing them with a way to feel more comfortable through FitMyFoot’s technology was an easy decision for us and comments from our team is that the custom-built inserts are a huge hit.”

“Our extensive research has shown that those with proper, well-fitted insoles had a dramatically lower rate of discomfort and injury related to long periods of standing,” said Colin Lawson. “We are extremely excited about providing each Leisure Care employee with a custom-designed insole made possible by our proprietary 3D printing technology. We applaud Leisure Care for making this possible for its 3000 employees.

The new partnership is part of a larger growth stage for FitMyFoot, which has included a number of important achievements, such as selling its products in stories like The Color Run, wholesale supplying to practitioners, and collaborating with Blueprint Sports for college athlete name-image-likeness usage. In the meantime, the company is in conversations with Fortune 500 and multinational retailers.

Insoles are an ideal entry point into custom 3D printed consumer goods due to the fact that they are comparatively simple, but can yield high value in terms of fit, comfort, and treatment/prevention of physical ailments. In turn, they can demonstrate the value-add that custom 3D printed items bring to a given sector. This has already been showcased in hearing aids and clear dental aligners, so orthotics are often seen as a follow-on product in the medical category to get the 3D printed boost.

While there was previously a great deal of interest in such a product, that interest has waned to some extent, perhaps leaving room for less successful startups, like Sols, to fade while more robust ones prosper. Therefore, we’re still waiting for the market for 3D printed insoles to take off. Because 3D printing service bureau Materialise acquired one of the other leading providers of 3D printed orthotics, RSscan, in 2020, we presume that development related to the technology and business model is still occurring, with much of it behind the scenes.

3DPrint.com and SmarTech Analysis are hosting Additive Manufacturing Strategies in New York City on February 7-9, 2023. Register for the event here to learn from and network with the most exciting companies and individuals in AM.

All images courtesy of FitMyFoot.

Share this Article


Recent News

Will There Be a Desktop Manufacturing Revolution outside of 3D Printing?

Know Your Würth: CEO AJ Strandquist on How Würth Additive Can Change 3D Printing



Categories

3D Design

3D Printed Art

3D Printed Food

3D Printed Guns


You May Also Like

Featured

Pressing Refresh: What CEO Brad Kreger and Velo3D Have Learned About Running a 3D Printing Company

To whatever extent a business is successful thanks to specialization, businesses will nonetheless always be holistic entities. A company isn’t a bunch of compartments that all happen to share the...

Würth Additive Launches Digital Inventory Services Platform Driven by 3D Printing

Last week, at the Additive Manufacturing Users’ Group (AMUG) Conference in Chicago (March 10-14), Würth Additive Group (WAG) launched its new inventory management platform, Digital Inventory Services (DIS). WAG is...

Featured

Hypersonic Heats Up: CEO Joe Laurienti on the Success of Ursa Major’s 3D Printed Engine

“It’s only been about 24 hours now, so I’m still digesting it,” Joe Laurienti said. But even via Zoom, it was easy to notice that the CEO was satisfied. The...

Featured

3D Printing’s Next Generation of Leadership: A Conversation with Additive Minds’ Dr. Gregory Hayes

It’s easy to forget sometimes that social media isn’t reality. So, at the end of 2023, when a burst of doom and gloom started to spread across the Western world’s...