Introducing Ventete, the world’s first inflatable bike helmet

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

In 1975 the Bell Biker revolutionised the cycle helmet. A tough plastic shell with a liner of compressible expanded-polystyrene foam, it was a vast improvement on clunky repurposed motorbike hard hats or the padded-leather scrum caps that had been in vogue. Since then, remarkably little has changed. Materials have improved and innovations such as MIPS (helping to reduce rotational forces on the head on impact) have provided better protection, but the fundamentals have been the same for nearly 50 years. The $844.6mn cycle helmet market has been crying out for another revolution.

Enter Ventete (pronounced “von-tet”), a British company that has created the world’s first inflatable cycle helmet. Folded down, the Ventete aH-1 looks like a thick boomerang – 11 woven-nylon bladders, ribbed with fibreglass at the top, are plastic-welded together to form the shell, with a Presta-style valve on the side for inflation. Connect the included handheld electric pump to the valve and, with a little buzzing noise, the helmet blooms like a flower, over 30 seconds, into something resembling a standard bike helmet, albeit a particularly space-age one.

Ventete’s development has been led by Colin Herperger, an architectural designer who’s spent 10 years wrestling with the problem of making helmets both safe and portable. “We started working on it in 2014 as a 3D-printed idea,” he says, “but the material was too brittle for the intensity of impact.” Even once the tough nylon fabric used in the final product had been found, more challenges presented themselves. “There had never been a manufacturing process that could assemble this system,” says Herperger. “So over the past seven years, as well as developing the helmet, we’ve been figuring out a manufacturing process.”

Its arrival into the market has come at a time when urban travel is changing rapidly. “We’ve gone from a very defined, Lycra-based version of what a cyclist is to micro‑mobility of transportation that fits into everyone’s life,” says Ventete’s head of design innovation Sam Davies. “You don’t now need to be a ‘cyclist’ to use these things. It’s a much more spontaneous way of getting about.” 

The decade of development that has gone into bringing Ventete to market was partly funded by a series of Innovate UK grants, where companies apply for public investment. “About 20 per cent of applications win grants – we’ve won five,” says Herperger. There’s been significant interest, too, in its seed-funding rounds “from top cycle companies and early investors in fashion brands and online retailers”, which have raised over £6mn. A Series A funding round is imminent. 

Herperger and Davies bring an architect’s approach to marrying function with form; from the waterproof zippable bag that the Ventete comes in to the aggressively monochrome styling, the helmet will certainly score kudos with the everyday carry crowd. “Micromobility is still finding its identity,” says Davies. “So we’ve been pushing forwards to create an aesthetic.”

It’s a really self-conscious thing to put on a helmet so we wanted to create something you want to wear

I’ve been wearing Lycra on a bike for too long to claim any cycling style points, but I’m pleasantly surprised not to feel like a twerp when I wear the Ventete with jeans to ride into town on errands. It’s quick to change my habits – where I’d usually go bare-headed for a swift trip to the supermarket (who can be bothered managing a helmet and a basket?) or walk to the station in favour of hopping on a Lime bike, with the Ventete in my bag I find myself making excuses to cycle places again. “It’s odd, because safety is fundamentally not cool,” admits Herperger. “But it allows a lot more people to experience the joy of getting around. It’s made it fun.”

“It’s a really self-conscious thing to put on a helmet,” agrees Davies, “so we wanted to create something you want to wear.” If early sales are anything to go by, they’ve succeeded – the first drop this year sold out in 10 minutes. Industry recognition has followed, with three Innovation In Sport awards this year. “It’s exciting, but it’s nicer to see that people recognise the product and the outcome of the endeavour,” Herperger says. After scooping a Red Dot Design Best of the Best award earlier this year, the Ventete aH-1 was today awarded its prestigious Luminary prize for outstanding innovation, having been nominated from more than 5,000 finalists. “It’s an honour for our team after 10 years of perseverance to gain such international recognition,” says Herperger.

Beyond the portability benefits, the air-filled helmet also promises safety improvements over traditional helmet construction. “Foam can go down a little bit then the compression maxes out,” explains Herperger, “whereas with a pneumatic cavity there’s much more depth. Imperial College London tested a range of 30 helmets available in the UK – in linear impacts we were better than all of them by 25 per cent.”

Helmets are a hotly debated topic in cycling circles – active travel advocates rightly rankle at the suggestion that they’re a solution to poor cycle infrastructure – but as a helmet user I’m all in favour of anything that will help a rider feel safe, secure and confident enough to get out on two wheels. The Ventete feels good, looks good and works well – I’ll be keeping one in my bag.