PRESS RELEASE
Moscow, 30.08.2017
Skolkovo’s resident company HUDWAY has surpassed its $100,000 financial goal on Kickstarter within less than 24 hours
HUDWAY, a resident of Skolkovo’s space and telecommunications cluster, was seeking financial support to launch mass production of HUDWAY Cast, its latest head-up display (HUD). The system allows drivers to get directions, receive calls and texts, and control their music while driving. By Wednesday – two days after the launch – it had already raised $179,759.
HUDWAY Cast designed in partnership with the Chinese HUD maker Carrobot is mounted on the dashboard and projects the navigation system directions into the driver’s vision, so they don’t have to look away from the road to follow navigation instructions. The HUD connects wirelessly to smartphones, enabling drivers to use the navigation app of their choice and then stream it to the HUD.
“The image from HUDWAY Cast display is taken to a lens which enlarges it to 20 inches and focuses the virtual image about 9 feet or 2.8 meters in front of you. This way, it feels easier for your eyes to readjust focus from the road to the projection — just like using a luxury vehicle built-in HUD, but about a dozen times less expensive,” HUDWAY wrote on their crowdfunding page on Kickstarter.
The company plans to start mass production in October, and ship the Kickstarter orders and release the app in November.
HUDWAY earlier launched its first hardware product, HUDWAY Glass, following a highly successful crowdfunding campaign.
“HUDWAY Cast is less than half the price of its U.S. competitors, which have a price range of $500-$800,” says Ivan Klabukov, CEO and co-founder of HUDWAY.
“And we can offer some undeniable advantages. First of all, we use the hardware capabilities of the smartphone itself, which enables us to keep the price of the head-up display quite low. In addition, users of our soft can stick to their customary navigation apps like Google Maps and Waze, whereas our competitors only allow for their own navigation systems. We are striving for a simple and affordable product for mass-market customers, but at the same time, our functional and visual solutions are on the same level as those in the premium segment. Today 50% of our clients are from the US, 25% from Europe (the U.K., France and Germany), and 25% are from Asia (China and South Korea), while Russia only accounts for 2%. I think that this correlation will more or less remain the same for the new product.”
More on the topic: http://sk.ru/news/b/news/archive/2017/08/29/hudway-soars-past-financing-goal-for-new-headup-display-for-drivers.aspx
About HUDWAY
HUDWAY was founded in 2013 by two cousins experienced in product development and business administration. The company oriented itself towards developing simple and affordable HUD solutions suitable for any driver. Since 2013 the company has released a range of products — from mobile apps to vehicle accessories. In 2015 HUDWAY launched a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter and collected six times more than they targeted for. In 2016 Fast Company magazine featured HUDWAY in Top-10 List of the Most innovative companies in Automotive Sector (alongside Tesla and Ford Motors).
About the Skolkovo Foundation
The Skolkovo Foundation is a non-profit organization founded in September 2010 by the Russian government with the objective of accelerating Russia’s transformation from a resource-intensive to an innovation-based economy. To achieve this objective, the Foundation is overseeing the creation of the Skolkovo Innovation Center, composed of more than 1,700 high-tech startups, Skolkovo Technopark, the Skolkovo Institute of Technology (Skoltech) - a new graduate research University established in collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology - and Skolkovo city, located near Moscow. Together, these entities establish a vibrant ecosystem of technology innovation and entrepreneurship. The cumulative revenue of Skolkovo’s startups reached $2,2 billion. They brought in more than $186 million in investment, creating 22,100 jobs and filing over 1,100 patent applications along the way. By 2020 over 2 million square meters of residential and office space will be built in Skolkovo with 35,000 people working daily in the Innovation Center. For more information: http://www.sk.ru/en
Press Contact
Skolkovo
Lyubov Korotetskaya
+79151328369
lkorotetskaya@sk.ru