Cubii gets funding from Healthbox, Tullman, Shekhawat
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Cubii, a startup that aims to help office workers get some exercise without leaving their desks, is graduating beyond Kickstarter.
The company, which came up with a compact elliptical machine that fits under a desk, has raised more than $1 million since three undergrads at the University of Chicago launched it in 2013.
Investors include Healthbox, the health care accelerator in Fulton Market where Cubii is based; Howard Tullman, CEO of 1871 and a longtime startup investor; Jai Shekhawat,founder and former CEO of Fieldglass; and David Appel and Joel Appel, former top executives of Orange Glo International.
Cubii brought in $300,000 on Kickstarter in late 2014, topping its initial $100,000 goal. But the startup had a hard time getting the 3,000 machines that had been ordered into the hands of eager Kickstarter customers. To fulfill the orders, it raised $300,000 from private investors last year. Cubii then received another $350,000 to build more machines, which are produced by a contract manufacturer in China.
CEO Arnav Dalmia said all the Kickstarter orders were shipped by year-end. "We sold out more quickly than we imagined,” he said.
He said sales have risen from about 150 units per month to about 500 a month in the past quarter. The machines, which cost $347, are sold only on the company's website, mostly from word of mouth. Now he hopes to double production to 1,000 a month.
He also wants to sell the product directly to companies as a way to improve employee wellness and health. Cubii has nine employees, five of them in Chicago, three in India and one in China.