Whill is a company known for designing, creating, and making personal mobility devices and products. The company was founded by Junpei Naito, Muneaki Fukuoka, Naoto Sakakibara, and Satoshi Sugie in 2012, in San Carlos, California, United States.
The company was founded in order to help people who are wheelchair users to both travel to a destination, but to do so without a negative image from society. The goal of the company was made to provide a mobility device that allows user to feel empowered, enthused, and confident to do the things they need and want to do.
The mobility device, the WHILL Personal Electric Vehicles (EV), is meant to be able to explore the world, complement the user, provide safety and security, and to be used for several modes of life. The wheelchair is designed to be compact in size, have intuitive controls, and omni-wheels to make maneuvering the world more enjoyable. It has an all-wheel drive system, is designed for long range, and is designed for stability.
Whill is a company that participated in the 500 Startups Batch 6 cohort in May 2013 and raised an estimated $32,349,999.
Timeline
Funding rounds
People
Atsushi Mizushima
Advisor
Ben Liu
Investor
Bob Cheng
Investor
Chris Koyama
Employee
Danny Kurtzman
Investor
Eric Kwan
Investor
George Kellerman
Advisor
Hitoshi Kawanabe
Investor
Ikuo C. Hiraishi
Investor
Jen S McCabe
Investor
Junpei Naito
Founder
Kazumasa Namekata
Investor
Madeleine Marsh
Employee
Muneaki Fukuoka
Employee
Puneet Jhaveri
Employee
Ram Anantharaman
Investor
Rayner Olson
Employee
Robert Shone
Employee
Satoshi Sugie
Founder
Scott McNealy
Advisor
Shinji Asada
Investor
Shogo Tabata
Investor
Stan Kuruvilla
Investor
Takeshi (Ted) Homma
Investor
Ted Fagenson
Employee
Further reading
Documentaries, videos and podcasts
Companies
WHILL
San Carlos, California, United States
Mobility Devices