A Portland company's third seed funding round has landed it $1 million.
This brings shoe maker Vimazi's total seed funding amount to $2.6 million, said co-founder John Zilly, who's built the company for three years with co-founder Scott Tucker. The basic principle behind Zimazi's shoe is that the faster the runner, the more force they generate.
Vimazi’s pace-tuned shoes thus react to the forces runners generates at their pace, providing optimized cushioning and max efficiency.
The shoes retail for $150 to $175, depending on the pace.
This seed round came after a supplier put Vimazi in a tough situation. Vimazi had to double its minimum order amount or risk being sent to the back of the supplier's line.
“We needed to make a decision in a few days, so we said yes and we needed to raise a little bit more money,” Zilly said. The company also sought to raise funds for PR and marketing work for the launch as well as accelerating shoes it plans to release next year.
The first four models in Vimazi’s pilot collection will be available to consumers in September, with two additional models rolling out in October. Vimazi is also currently designing and testing five more pace-tuned shoes, slated for launch in 2023.
The majority of funding is coming from angel investors who have invested in prior rounds and are friends of friends or family. Zilly said whle the company has considered working with more VCs, angel investors have offered the more mutually beneficial route.
“(Angel investors) are low key and they let us be the experts,” Zilly said.
While Zilly doesn’t anticipate Vimazi needing to raise any more funds before the fall launch, he expects to hold another round after the launch to continue pushing the brand and products to get in front of more eager feet.
“Our philosophy about being a startup is that we don't want to be the sort of startup where we're being completely subsidized by investment money, we're losing money all along and we're just waiting for an acquisition,” Zilly said. “We want to be the kind of startup that is very quickly profitable and the only reason we’d need more funding is to really hit the accelerator on growth.”
