Ramp's mission is to cure disability with robotics. Today, we're building an attachment that converts any manual wheelchair into a sub-30lb. electric vehicle that can self-balance over rough terrain. Tomorrow, we'll build exoskeletons to make wheelchairs obsolete.

Lower limb disability affects over 11 million patients in the U.S. alone. For the most severe disabilities, such as spinal cord injuries, the only option is the use of a wheelchair. Manual wheelchairs are difficult to maneuver, slow to push on any surface, and exhausting on inclines. Electric wheelchairs typically cost tens of thousands of dollars, weigh hundreds of pounds, and require expensive lifts for vehicles. What's worse? In both cases, steep inclines, curbs, stairs, and off-road terrain are all off-limits. Going out into the real world, this results in a feeling of being trapped in your own body, chained to a device that hasn't seen significant change since the 1980's.

Introducing the Ramp Chair, an attachment that converts any manual wheelchair into an off-road electric vehicle. It self-balances to wheelie over obstacles. It can climb over rocks and down curbs. It can be controlled remotely, tearing through grass, gravel, mud, and snow. Climbing uphill is no problem! It always works as a manual chair, never leaving you stranded from a dead battery like our competitors do. It’s portable enough to fit into any car, rideshare, or plane. And at under 35 pounds, it’s the lightest electric wheelchair in the world. It has a range of 10 miles, and you can swap in a fresh battery when it runs out. So you can ride it to work, or ride it anywhere you want!

The electric wheelchair market in the U.S. alone is $2 Billion, and it is the fastest growing market in the industry. This doesn’t include our overlap with the manual wheelchair market, or sales in the rest of North America, Europe, and China, which are all on our horizon.

Before today, you would need three different wheelchairs to do what Ramp does with one – a manual for every day, an electric for mobility, and an off-road for the outdoors. Who carries around three wheelchairs? This would cost $29,730. The iBot wheelchair is the most well-known self-balancing wheelchair, which the Segway is based off of. It costs $30,000 by itself!

We plan to manufacture and sell wheelchair drive units at a 75% gross margin, taking advantage of existing electric vehicle motor & battery supply chains, manufacturing our transmission in-house, and leveraging online disability communities to lower customer acquisition costs. We’re pre-selling our first 150 units direct-to-consumer. In the future, bike shops may become hubs for sales and particularly, maintenance. No more going to expensive, incompetent wheelchair repair sites in the middle of nowhere. Just go to your local bike shop! We plan to roll out our FDA 510(k) model in 2020, which would be eligible for reimbursement by Medicaid.

We are in a market with insane word-of-mouth. Practically every new product is known by all users and therapists within the first year. We have budgeted fixed costs for hitting all the major adaptive sports and complex rehab conferences. We believe that everyone will know about us.

We’re selling our first 150 units direct-to-consumer.

In order to scale within the existing market, next year, we plan to focus on being a component manufacturer. That go-to-market strategy is to partner with chassis manufacturers. This reduces regulatory overhead, and customer acquisition costs (CAC), as we will piggy-back off chassis sales. This is the strategy that the heads of sales at the major distributors have recommended, and they have already made introductions for us.

We plan to launch demographics in the following order:

• Athletes (next 30-60 days)
  • Ramp believes that Athletes are the best initial product market fit. These individuals buy more wheelchairs, care more about performance, and have a higher ability to purchase or be sponsored than anyone. Ramp currently has multiple Paralympians, some of them Gold Medalists, who have expressed strong interest in using the Ramp Drive. Mel Du, Ramp’s CEO, is himself the 2019 National Champion in Olympic Shotgun in the Wheelchair Division, and can get introductions to anyone on Team USA. In addition, there are a handful of nonprofits that purchase such equipment for athletes.
• Veterans (next 2 months)
  • Veterans are extremely tough on wheelchairs, care the most about off-roading, and have great options for reimbursement or sponsorship of wheelchairs. We have met many disabled veterans through the founder’s collegiate shooting sports career and personal life. The newest, most advanced VA hospital for SCI was opened in Denver this last quarter, so Denver is the perfect place to be. VA reimbursement is much more flexible than normal insurance or Medicaid. In addition, there are many nonprofits, and many private individuals , which buy off-road wheelchairs for veterans.
• All Ultralight Rigid Manual Wheelchair users, period. (next year)
  • This is simply a matter of price. We have spoken to the heads of sales at the major distributors. We need to hit a price point below what a new wheelchair costs. It’s about opportunity cost for users looking to upgrade. Sub-$5,000 would make us viable for all ultralight users, and be attractive for insurance providers. $4,000 would practically price our competitors out of the market, or force them to sell at lower margins.
• Those who want to use a manual chair but can’t. (next year)
  • This is a matter of control interface, for those able to lean forward for pressure relief.
• Mobility Scooter users (1.5 years)
  • Ramp plans to adapt our system into a tricycle, with minimal production part changes for the drive train. Many thousands of these scooters are sold a month and our wheelchair IP has great potential to disrupt this market. This is by far our biggest adjacent market, as well as the easiest engineering task.
• Electric wheelchair users requiring tilt-in-space. (2+ years)
  • For those needing complex seating for pressure relief, this is a must. Wheelchair users must shift their weight in order to not get pressure sores from sitting on the same spot all day. Tilting is needed for those who can’t adjust their bodies themselves. This is one of the many, huge mistakes that iBot (predecessor to the Segway) made. This single feature would put us into a market where chairs cost $15-60k, insurance reimbursement is much more clear cut (users have demonstrated extreme need already), and gross margins are typically over 85%.

Recent milestones and accomplishments in 2019:

• March: Completed first full-size, self-balancing prototype
• April: Techstars Boulder ‘19 (~1% acceptance rate, $18.2B market cap)
• June: Hired a world-class electric racecar engineer
• July: Thiel Fellowship $100k grant (~0.5% acceptance rate, $8.2B market cap)
• August: Presales begin for our first units

Press mentions:

• Aug 4, 2018
  TECH SA: Medical robotics company creates self-balancing wheelchair with high speed
• Jan 18, 2019
  Techstars: Announcing the Class for Techstars Boulder 2019
• Jul 10, 2019
  Business Wire: Thiel Foundation Announces 2019 Thiel Fellows