Zellerfeld Partners With Volumental to Advance Custom-Fit 3D Printed Shoes

Zellerfeld announced today that it is partnering with Volumental. Volumental’s foot-scanning solution will be used in Zellerfeld’s shoe 3D-printing platform. Volumental will receive an investment from Zellerfeld but remain independent. In the current setup, “Volumental’s in-store and online scanning experiences are fed directly into Zellerfeld’s 3D printing pipeline and allows each shoe to be printed to the specific contours of an individual customer’s foot.”

Zellerfeld CEO Cornelius Schmitt said,

“We looked at every credible 3D foot-scanning option in the world before selecting Volumental. It was the clear choice because the precision and accuracy of their scans are what custom 3D printing actually requires, and the experience, in store or on a phone, is simple enough that any customer can complete it. They have spent more than a decade building the fit technology layer the footwear industry needs. Partnering with Volumental lets us focus on what Zellerfeld does best: turning precise foot data into custom 3D-printed shoes at scale.”

At the same time, Volumental CEO Alper Aydemir said,

“Zellerfeld has built something the footwear industry has talked about for twenty years and never actually delivered at scale: shoes manufactured to your foot, not the average foot. For that to work, the foot data has to be right. Zellerfeld evaluated the entire field and chose us — that means a great deal to us. There is no better partner to make individually-fit footwear the default, not the exception.”

The two firms say the partnership will make it easier to use foot-scanning data from both in-store and mobile experiences to manufacture custom-fit shoes. Volumental’s foot-scanning technology has already been deployed by various shoe firms, such as New Balance and Hoka, as well as large shoe retailers. The company has an easy-to-use suite of products that can narrow down your shoe choice or capture the right foot data.

This partnership follows Zellerfeld’s recent investment of roughly $900,000 in Volumental. The company has amassed more than 66 million foot scans through a network of over 3,000 retail locations worldwide. If custom footwear is to become a mass-market product, a large database of foot measurements could be a significant competitive advantage. In that sense, data may prove to be just as important as the manufacturing technology itself.

Zellerfeld, meanwhile, went from being the darling of 3D printed shoes for large luxury brands to a platform. You can upload and sell your design through Zellerfeld, showcasing a kind of YouTube-for-shoes approach. This platform approach means that Zellerfeld is trying to position itself as a key piece of infrastructure for a future digital shoe industry. If people switch en masse to 3D printed shoes, the biggest and most efficient platform for designers and brands is likely to be Zellerfeld. This could mean the best reach, the widest choice, the best economies of scale, and the lowest cost per pair. With Volumental on board, Zellerfeld hopes to make more accurate shoes that please customers.

The shoes so far look very futuristic, but some, like the Havaianas TopToe, for example, look very wearable, while prices are well within the range of higher-end offerings from retail brands. We do not yet know what position 3D printing of shoes will hold in the overall market. It could be a more efficient, less wasteful, more profitable way to make shoes. Or it could be a niche within a much bigger market that trudges on using the old ways.