Ultijack is a multi-purpose modular jacket that is resistant to wind, water and snow – including multifunctional compartments and pockets (9 of them to be exact). The jacket also includes a removeable 5000 mAh USB battery, NFC card with personal information, protection for mobile phone use in adverse weather conditions, a hood that can be converted into a pillow, and much more.
The aim of Rijeka designer Valineja Vinger was to create jackets that would not only be attractive and practical, but would also allow new forms of interaction with various devices such as smart phones, laptops and tablets, reports tportal.
The Ultijack team (which currently consists of 3 members) gathered around designer Valineja Vinger, and after more than a year of development they were ready to sell. The prototype of the jacket was created on a home sewing machine which lasted about a week. The concept was changed in parallel with market research and today the finished product cost 199.99 US dollars on their website.
The Ultijack jacket in its entirety includes a headphone holder, small pocket, battery charger, padded soft cleaning pocket, phone pocket, keyholder, tablet / iPad pocket, waist bag, glasses compartment, glasses cleaning cloth, passport pocket, see-through smartphone sleeve pocket, bottle pocket, and NFC tags.
The production is now small and completely in Croatia, but the ambitions are greater.
“For now it is only available on the web. The aim is to gradually expand into foreign markets (US, Germany) in order to reduce the cost of production. We expect Ultijack to mainly be bought by men and people who lead an active life from the countryside to the sea. After that, we plan to open other sales channels. Over time, we estimate that we will go in the most interesting direction for further development.”
Ultijack launched in the startup community of Rijeka in the second half of last year, with the project already awarded winner of the Balkan Venture Forum and professional fashion event Modni Ormar. In February this year, the company ran a campaign on the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter, with the goal of collecting 15,000 US dollars, but that has now been abandoned.
You can find more information on Ultijack here.