HILOS makes shoes more sustainable without skimping on style

When people think of 3D printing, they might think of the plastic trinkets and miniature figurines that teenagers make in school libraries. For HILOS (Human Innovation Laboratory Operating System), 3D printing means creating shoes that are chic, low-waste, and runway-ready.

“Brands are overproducing by 20% because they don’t know what size and style will be needed when, so they have to overproduce and still lack sales,” HILOS CEO Elias Stahl told TechCrunch. HILOS performed today on the Startup Battlefield stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024.

This overproduction leads to waste, causing Americans to throw away 300 million pairs of shoes every year. Once these shoes end up in a landfill, they can take 30 to 40 years to decompose.

A surefire way to minimize overproduction is to produce only what customers actually buy, but on-demand retail services are expensive because shoes are not produced in bulk. But thanks to 3D printing technology, HILOS has found a way to print stylish shoes on demand within 72 hours.

“HILOS has patented new forms of shoe production specifically for digital manufacturing, so they require less labor and fewer components,” Stahl said. “We’re taking what traditionally might be five or six different materials, combining them into one printed material, so you can literally print and assemble in the US, paying an American wage, without the shoes costing $300.”

HILOS does not sell shoes itself; it borrows concepts from past e-commerce trendsetters such as Bonobos. Brand stores that work with HILOS can stock fewer items for customers to try on, and then once customers know what style and size suits them, they can ship the shoes to them.

“So instead of having 20 (shoes) and changing the order every 120 days, they can have two and changing the order every 72 hours,” Stahl said.

To make 3D printed shoes, HILOS uses powder printing, as opposed to the cheaper plastic models found in schools.

“The powder is the most expensive, the most industrial grade, the highest quality and finish,” Stahl said. “So when we pull something like this out of the printer, it feels soft and suede and velvety.”

The shoes themselves don’t magically appear from a 3D printer—the company prints multiple modular shoe parts that can be assembled quickly and easily. They also aren’t made from 3D printed material, which will likely sacrifice functionality and comfort. Instead, HILOS offers materials such as leather and knitwear, which are also used in a modular and multifunctional way.

“This is where the modular product creation process really creates greater efficiency,” Stahl said. “You can have 10 different leather products in 40 different styles.”

Even with such modular manufacturing, shoe development still takes a long time. As part of its brand technology platform, HILOS uses artificial intelligence and augmented reality technologies to more quickly transform shoe sketches into 3D printable models.

“We can automate and speed up this process so that a 2D image is immediately converted into a 3D file that can be manufactured, carried around and ensured with integrity,” Stahl said.

If a designer uses more analog methods to model their shoe prototypes, AR tools can simulate the design, taking it from physical to digital.

“The idea is to allow the designer to design in the physical world, and to design not with a screen or a mouse, but to be creative where he is creative, to be inspired where he is inspired, because technology, after certain levels, should become invisible ” Stahl said.

HILOS intentionally chose to open a store in Portland, Oregon, where more than 500 outerwear brands such as Nike, Adidas and Columbia are headquartered. The company is one of the leaders of Portland’s Made in Old Town project, which aims to bring sustainable footwear manufacturing back to the shore. Oregon legislators supported the initiative, approving a $125 million grant to restore 10 buildings and four city blocks.

“Instead of putting these giant factories on the outskirts of the city in Guangdong, China, we can create our real communities here in the US, our hubs filled with on-demand manufacturing that is highly skilled, high quality labor, sustainable and environmentally friendly. it changes the way we see our downtown,” Stahl said. “Portland has become an amazing home for us.”

On stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024, HILOS announced a new partnership with footwear brand Steve Madden, which will use HILOS’ on-demand product creation platform to make its supply chain more sustainable.