Certor Sports, the parent company of Seattle-based football helmet maker Vicis Inc., has moved its headquarters to Plainfield, Indiana.
Although Certor Sports opened a 230,000-square-foot manufacturing facility and headquarters in Plainfield, located just outside Indianapolis, the company is keeping a research, development and innovation center in Seattle.
Jim Heidenreich, who was announced as Certor's CEO on Thursday along with the headquarters move, said the center in Seattle will test all of Certor's sports brands, not just helmets.
"And it will be for all product categories. Not just football, but as we get into baseball, hockey and lacrosse, really that will be our innovation center, whether it's new technologies or materials," Heidenreich said.
The research and development center is at Vicis's old headquarters in South Lake Union, but a Certor spokesperson said the company will likely move to a new space in Seattle in the third quarter of 2022. The current space is about 10,000 square feet.
Vicis was founded in 2013 and spun out of the University of Washington in 2014. The company has received backing from NFL stars such as Aaron Rodgers and Russell Wilson, and the NFL gave Vicis helmets the highest lab performance ranking of any helmet in 2021. Vicis had raised more than $85 million as of February 2019.
Despite Vicis' early success, the company faced financial trouble, laid off employees and went into receivership in December 2019. New York City-based investment firm Innovatus Capital Partners bought what was left of the company in April 2020.
In December 2020, Innovatus also purchased the assets of Kranos Corp., including Schutt, which makes helmets and other sports equipment. Innovatus also acquired ProGear, Tucci Bats, Hollywood Bases and Adams USA through Kranos, and the firm announced its new sports equipment parent company Certor Sports to encompass all of its new brands.
Heidenreich brings experience from Mongoose Bicycles, Complete Nutrition and Riddell Sports to Certor. He said Vicis had developed a great product but struggled with getting its product to the market, which relies heavily on relationships. With Certor's sales team of between 40 and 50 people, Heidenreich said the company now has the go-to-market strategy to match with the technology.
"We want the NFL and we want D1, but we also obviously want the high schools, and we want the youth groups," Heidenreich said. "We want everybody to have access to that great equipment."
