3D打印造出最合脚的鞋垫 一双定价500美元获风投热捧

    如果说2013年3-D打印还停留在技术探索阶段，那么2014年则在于如何将这种新奇技术变成实用的商业工具。

    新创企业Sols Systems堪称这方面的先驱，它利用3-D打印来定制矫形鞋垫。这项业务不属于投资者通常会感兴趣的领域，然而，Sols公司成立刚刚几个月，就已经吸引了大量风投公司的兴趣。

    日前，Sols宣布获得拉克斯资本（Lux Capital）640万美元的风险投资，参与投资的还有Founders Fund以及Sols现有投资者罗森伯格基金（Rothenberg Ventures）、Felicis Ventures、FundersGuild以及Grape Arbor VC等风头机构。去年12月，Sols曾获得175万美元的种子资金。

    Sols的商业模式如下：足科医生可报名在自己的诊室使用Sols公司产品。通过Sols的iPad应用程序，医生能扫描病人的双脚，随后Sols利用3-D打印，制造脚的模具以及定制鞋垫，价格要比正常价格低得多，时间也比通常所需时间短很多。

    自从获得种子资金以来，Sols已经在自己的平台上与50位医生一道进行了第二阶段测试（即公开测试——译注）。（它合作的医生中包括“灰姑娘”整形手术的发明者——阿里•萨德利耶医生。这项手术旨在使女性穿着高跟鞋更加舒适，《纽约时报》最近有文章对该手术进行了报道。）

    Sols在测试阶段的发货量已达到500双鞋垫。定制鞋垫的售价由医生确定，但Sols的建议售价为500美元。2015年，这家公司将推出面向消费者的产品，非处方定制鞋垫的售价将在100美元左右。

    Sols并不是唯一一家把3-D打印作为技术平台基础的公司。其它医疗领域的公司还有Organovo，它使用活细胞来“打印”人体器官，而3D Systems公司则在迅速收购3-D打印医疗设备和假肢公司。

    Sols联合创始人基根•肖温伯格拥有3-D打印方面的专长。她是帮助Shapeways公司在纽约建立25,000平方英尺3-D打印厂房的团队成员之一。今年，Sols已经从一个小型的创业团队壮大到拥有12名员工，还在曼哈顿成立了研发中心。

    肖温伯格表示，自从Sols开始公开测试以来，对Sols产品的需求之大令她感到惊讶。肖温伯格说：“一直以来，我们使用的鞋垫与我们的脚型相去甚远，恰恰表明定制鞋垫大有可为。长久以来，我们对于鞋子与脚型不合现象已经习以为常。”（财富中文网）

    译者：项航

    If 2013 was all about 3-D printing for 3-D printing's sake, 2014 is about how to take the category from novelty hobby to a useful business tool.

    Leading the charge is Sols Systems, a young startup using 3-D printing to create custom orthotic insoles. It's not the kind of business investors would call "sexy," and yet, Sols has attracted plenty of venture interest just a few months into its existence.

    Today the company announced it raised $6.4 million in venture funding from Lux Capital, with Founders Fund and existing investors Rothenberg Ventures, Felicis Ventures, FundersGuild, and Grape Arbor VC participating. The company raised a seed round worth $1.75 million in December.

    Sols works as such: Foot doctors sign up to use Sols in their offices. Through Sols' iPad app, they can scan their patients' feet. Sols then uses 3-D printing to create a mold of the foot and a custom insole for a fraction of the price and time it would normally take.

    Since its seed round, Sols has done beta testing with 50 doctors on its platform. (This includes Dr. Ali Sadrieh, the doctor who invented the "Cinderella" procedure, a plastic surgery for women's feet that makes wearing high heels more comfortable, as recently highlighted in a New York Times article.)

    Sols has shipped around 500 insoles while in beta. The cost of custom insoles is up to the doctors, but Sols suggests $500. In 2015, the company will roll out a consumer-facing product, which will offer over-the-counter custom insoles at around $100.

    Sols is one of the first companies to emerge using 3-D printing as a basis for a technology platform. Others in the medical field have emerged, including Organovo, a company which prints human organs using live cells, and 3D Systems, which has been rapidly acquiring 3-D printing medical device and prosthetics companies.

    Sols co-founder Kegan Schouwenburg has the 3-D printing chops: She was part of the team which helped build out Shapeways' 25,000-square-foot 3-D printing facility in New York. This year Sols has gone from a small founding team to 12 employees and built out a research and development facility in Manhattan.

    Schouwenburg says that, since Sols' beta launch, she's been surprised at the demand. "I've blown away by what we put on our feet and how far off that is from what our bodies look like," she says. "It only reinforces the fact that a custom solution is needed. Shoes are not engineered to fit, and it's something we've been okay with for however long."