Riding electric boards is hot. Future Motion has raised $3.2 million for tis one-wheeled electric skateboard, dubbed Onewheel.
The Onewheel is part of a wave of electric skateboards, hoverboards, and other devices that help people get around to places faster. It was part of a wave of personal transportation devices that were on display at the 2016 International CES, and it was recently one example of how electronics and wireless connectivity are changing the transportation experience.
The money comes from Deshe Holdings, which led the round, with participation from sports marketing leader Paul Crandell.
“I was interested in personal transportation, and it's turned out to be a nonstop, wild ride,” said Kyle Doerkesen, CEO of Onewheel maker Future Motion, in an interview with VentureBeat.
Onewheel has been labeled a “hoverboard,” however, it shares very few characteristics with both-wheeled boards that caught the public’s imagination — and occasionally caught on fire — during the past year. As its name suggests, it is a board with a big wheel embedded in the middle.
Above: Onewheel has one wheel on board.
Image Credit: Onewheel
It is the brain child of Doerkesen, whose company is based in the beach town of Santa Cruz, Calif.
“I grew up in the Canadian Rockies and snowboarded tons,” Doerkesen said. “I loved that feeling of floating on powder. It’s clean transportation, and you can stand on it without wobbling.”
He became a product designer at Ideo, the industrial design and product creation company in Silicon Valley. He started tinkering with the Onewheel concept after he was always late for meetings while walking along the Embarcadero in San Francisco.
“I was thinking it would be great to have something that I could use to zoom along to my meetings,” he said. “I saw the sensor technology going into smartphones was making motion sensors tons less expensive and higher quality. I started building prototypes. I was working on Onewheel long before any of the hoverboards happened. To me, the concept was about recreating the feeling of snowboarding on powder.”
He founded the company in 2013, and launched a product at CES in 2014. While the product doesn’t have obvious electronic parts, it actually has tons of expensive technology in it. The $1,500 board has a full-blown computer inside the wheel, with gyroscopes, accelerometers, and Bluetooth connectivity. The board weighs 25 pounds and it's a range of about six or seven miles.
“It’s a system you couldn’t build easily with off-the-shelf components,” Doerkesen said.
The device connects to your smartphone, which you can use to control the experience of the device. And it's an electric motor with a big lithium ion phosphate battery that allows you to zip along on straightaways.
Above: Onewheel has a computer inside, and a high-torque motor.
Image Credit: Future Motion
The board can go at a speed of 10 miles per hour. Doerkesen said you can learn to ride it in a minute or two, and you can become proficient at it within a short time. It is, he said, tons easier to learn than a skateboard or snowboard. Part of the reason is that the board is self-balancing. You lean forward to speed it up, and you lean back to slow it down.
Doerkesen said the money will be used to expand the team of 10 people. It will expand operations and it is quadrupling its manufacturing capacity since there has been so much demand. The company hasn’t disclosed its sales figures. Future Motion is also expanding distribution and service to Europe. Onewheel was recently awarded the prestigious ISPO Brand New 2016 award at ISPO, the world’s largest sporting goods show in Munich Germany.
The company is setting up a research and development team at its headquarters in Santa Cruz. That’s a good place since it’s the home for tons of pro extreme sports fans, some who surf or others who ride mountain bikes. The fact that the Onewheel can be used off road is very appealing to that crowd.
“Ever since I first tried the Onewheel, I knew it was a category-defining product,” said Elie Deshe, partner at Deshe Capital, in a statement. “Personal mobility is the next technological wave, and Future Motion’s Onewheel is uniquely positioned to lead the industry. We’re glad to support Kyle and his team during this exciting period of growth.”
The hoverboards have been making some trouble in the market, as videos have gone viral of some of the poorly made ones bursting into flames. Onewheel also had to deal with a copycat at CES. Bloomberg witnessed U.S. marshals raiding a Onewheel clone booth at CES for allegedly infringing a patent for the single-wheeled board product.
Above: You can update the firmware in the Onewheel via Bluetooth and an app.
Image Credit: Future Motion
“We launched at CES and so we know the significance of launching there,” Doerkesen said. “We've multiple patents and it was clear we needed to take action” in shutting down the clone maker’s booth.
He said the company makes its boards in San Jose, Calif., and it doesn’t cut corners on components. Over time, though, the price of the product should come down. However, it won’t compete with a $50 or $100 skateboard anytime soon.
“Our market is different, like for people who are retired from skateboards,” Doerkesen said. “Onewheel is more about floating. Our market is older, and it’s for people who appreciate high-quality products. It’s definitely easier, as it's stabilizers and it’s a pretty forgiving ride. ”
Additional funding was contributed by DSCN Capital, Hallet Capital, and Lighthouse Capital. They join existing investors Rock Point Capital, Urban.Us, Scott Cannon, founder of Mailbox (acquired by Dropbox) and Charles Crowe, previous board member of Quiksilver.