Volumental spun out of the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm in 2012 as an AI-based tech company. The goal was to bring to market a 3D scanner for footwear that could quantify fit for consumers, making it easier for them to not only buy shoes that fit, but also get recommendations on styles more suited to their feet. For brands and retailers, an improved customer experience leading to increased customer loyalty and a reduction in the number of shoes purchased and then returned were among the expected benefits.

Alper Aydemir, the company’s Chief Technology Officer, reports that today the company has about 50 employees and has foot scanners deployed to about 2,000 locations around the globe. “To date, we have scanned about five million people, and that number grows every day,” he says. “We are a tech company in our DNA, but we also combine that with great design and taste because those are the things our brand and retailer customers worry about.”

Volumental headquarters works with its global and regional footwear brands and retailers helping them plan both retail and ecommerce implementations of the technology. “Our scanners are placed primarily in retail locations,” Aydemir explains. “The customer walks in, and a store associate can get a scan in about five seconds. Along with the scan, we present shoe recommendations on an iPad based on the 3D data and machine learning models built on top of that. The iPad is linked to the cloud so that data can be aggregated for further machine learning. It’s great when the physical and digital worlds can fuse together. Most of our competition approaches this from the physical world; we are more on the merging side.”