Seating manufacturer Kalogon has moved into a dedicated manufacturing facility in Melbourne, Fla., to better accommodate its rapid growth.
In a Dec. 16 announcement, Kalogon said its overall revenue has more than doubled, with medical revenue nearly tripling year over year — growth that required production expansion so the company can keep up with demand.
The new manufacturing space can support up to $50 million in business annually.
“After reaching maximum production capacity at Groundswell Startups’ campus, Kalogon needed a larger dedicated facility to fulfill accelerating customer demand,” the announcement said. “Kalogon’s vertically integrated approach — designing, prototyping and manufacturing in-house — enables the company to implement improvements based on customer and clinical feedback in days rather than months.”
The Melbourne-based Groundswell is a nonprofit incubator for new companies. The Startups campus features coworking space and a prototyping lab.
But having outgrown that initial environment, Kalogon sees big advantages to its new facility.
“When your engineering team and production line are under the same roof, speed becomes your competitive advantage,” said Tim Balz, CEO and founder of Kalogon. “We hear feedback from a customer in the morning, prototype a solution by afternoon and have it in testing by the end of the week. That cycle would take months with overseas manufacturing. This facility gives us the capacity to scale that speed, introducing new products, expanding customizations and getting innovations to users at a pace that simply isn’t possible when you’re dependent on external supply chains.”
Kalogon has also expanded its team, which now numbers 35. Recent hires include a specialized industrial sewing technician, engineers and R&D experts. The company is also “actively hiring” in its engineering, product and sales divisions.
In addition to wheelchair seating, the company produces seating for automotive, aviation, home goods and commercial interior applications. Kalogon noted that interest in seated health is expanding, and that its seating solutions that “use patented air cell technology, sensors and AI [artificial intelligence] to relieve pressure addresses growing awareness of seating-related health issues across multiple markets, from wheelchair users managing pressure injury risk to professionals in transportation and aviation seeking enhanced comfort and performance.”
