On-Track Off-Road issue 195

FEATURE patents and mathematical models in the 1990s the company took the initial steps to their own helmet product. “Equestrian is really big in Sweden,” Lanner recounts “and at one point was the second most popular sport. MIPS was looked up to by many here and the equestrian helmet was a big success.”

However, due to a design fault of the retention system for the extreme cold of Swedish winters the lid had to be recalled and MIPS faced bankruptcy. “We then became an ‘ingredient’ brand, and not an expert in helmets but in rotation; we knew the idea had so much potential,” Lanner stresses.

Shortly afterwards salvation, growth and an eventual float on the Swedish Stock Exchange in 2017 came about because large-scale helmet companies could not develop their own technology to tackle rotation.

“Investment companies that owned brands like Bell and Giro took two years to do their due diligence and saw that they could not beat the MIPS patent, so they made an investment with us. Again, we had success, this time with the system ‘insert’ into a snow helmet.” Today MIPS belongs to 36 patent families and is present in a number of sports and activities. It is not a ‘one size fits all’ solution though. “It is crucial to know how we should build for certain helmet categories,” says Lanner. “We are extra strict in understanding the requirement before we start with a new category.”

“We usually spend around 120 days on each case,” he adds. “We’ll have the CAD for each helmet model and size. Each helmet has its own tooling and process. They have to match our criteria and we need to see a minimum reduction of strain for our tech to be released and sold as part of the helmet. If we don’t see that then we don’t release until the helmet has been re-designed. We usually see a lot