Electroloom
The business, the turning points, and the decisions behind them.
01 / WHAT IT BUILT
What the company did
Electroloom was a San Francisco startup, co-founded and led by CEO Aaron Rowley, that built what it claimed was the world's first 3D fabric printer. The machine used electrospinning: a customized liquid polyester/cotton blend was passed through an electrically charged nozzle and spun into nano-fibers, which were drawn onto a clothing-shaped mold to form seamless garments — a tank top, skirt, or beanie — with no stitching. Its 2015 Kickstarter campaign raised $82,344 against a $50,000 goal, offering Alpha prototype units to designers and creators.
02 / Electroloom FAILURE REASONS
Failure reasons
Electroloom ran out of money. As CEO Aaron Rowley wrote in the company's closure blog post, Electroloom had been funded through a mixture of venture capital and government grants, but despite over a year of effort it could not raise a new round; cost-cutting through 2016 was not enough to keep it afloat. Rowley cited slow technical progress, significant scientific risk, the lack of an MVP, and 'a poorly defined market opportunity.' In a later post-mortem he admitted the company bet on electrospinning far too early, bought into its own hype, and pushed a nebulous idea to market before the technology was ready.
03 / EVENT HISTORY
Events in the structured record
- Operations ended
Electroloom announced its closure in August 2016 after more than a year of unsuccessful fundraising.
04 / CONTEMPORARY REBUILD ASSESSMENT
Difficulty of rebuilding this project today
Material for this section is being gathered and checked. It will appear here once ready.
Overall assessment: Not completed
05 / CAUSAL CHAIN
How the factors connect
- 01
In 2016, Electroloom announced its closure in a company blog post by CEO Aaron Rowley, stating it lacked the financial ability to continue.
- 02
Kickstarter backers who had pledged for early-bird Alpha units never received them.
- 03
The underlying electrospinning technology was left in limbo; Rowley moved on to join Vue, a smart-glasses startup.