HIP-TEC (Head Injury Prevention Technology) launched its global partnership program, in which it will seek to provide its interior helmet protection system to the world’s top helmet makers.



HIP-TEC’s Inside interior helmet protection system is designed to fully integrate with other companies’ helmet shell concepts in an ingredient brand approach, meeting the needs and new benchmarks of the action sports industry and athletes that continue to push the limits of their sports. HIP-TEC’s formulated and tested interior capsule dramatically exceeds today’s outdated helmet standards and designs, which concentrate on reducing single, high impact skull fractures.


In extensive independent testing at certified labs, with HIP-TEC implemented into a partner’s helmet, the severity of an impact is reduced by 40 to 60 percent across all angles, impact testing velocities and drop test heights.


“Our interior technology system is a game changer bec

ause it mitigates against all three accident scenarios that can contribute to head injuries – high velocity impacts, low speed falls and rotational impacts,” says HIP-TEC co-founder Nick Turner. “Not only do helmets with HIP-TEC Inside technology significantly reduce the force of these impacts better than top helmet brands' current interior technologies, HIP-TEC Inside outperformed while being 20 percent thinner than a traditional ski or bike helmet’s protective core.”


The technology has been co-developed over the past decade at internationally certified labs with development through Johns Hopkins University joint research projects and testing at HIP-TEC’s Truckee-based helmet lab.


Current medical research indicates that the lower the g-forces associated with an impact, the less likely a concussion will occur. HIP-TEC’s patent-pending layered design, lowers g-forces during an accident by slowing down the speed at which the head feels the weight of an impact, thus lowering the critical peak acceleration to dead stop and decreasing head and brain injuries.

 

The formulated design of HIP-TEC allows protective layers to engage together as one unit or as separate energy absorbers depending on the severity of an impact.


“Because of current standards decision makers refusal to recognize the progression of sport and new medical research findings, helmets are not evolving at the speed of the athletes they are designed to protect,” comments HIP-TEC co-founder Tom Feiten. “International standards still require that a helmet is tested to keep an impact below 250 g’s (g-force) and then it’s certified to sale. We firmly believe helmets still need to pass this standard, but at the same time they also must address accidents that are causing the majority of concussions happening at smaller, low falls that register between 90 and 150 g’s. HIP-TEC Inside does this and does it better when engineered into another brand’s helmet.”


Based in Truckee, California, HIP-TEC is part of FT Accelerator, a San Francisco-based growth program for fashion tech startups.