Fast forward two years, and the German company made good on its vision. A successful Kickstarter campaign led to 1,000 pre-orders from over 30 countries, and now the grips are available on demand from Personomic’s website. The secret sauce is their material choice, combined with the individual fit made possible by Personomic’s proprietary smartphone-scanning technology.

Way back in the misty yonder days of 2021, Bikerumor’s coverage of Eurobike 2021 included a blurb about Personomic — a scrappy little startup with dreams of bringing personalized 3D-printed grips to the masses.

The company uses the paper as a reference point and creates a “digital twin” of your hand — an actual 3D model. Personomic then uses this digital twin to print a plastic mold of your personalized grip, then fills in that mold with silicon. When the silicon is set, employees remove the mold, package your grips, and stick them in the mail.

In addition to its headquarters in Rochester, Atalys has manufacturing facilities in Asheboro, NC, and the Dominican Republic. The New York and North Carolina plants have multiple Class 8 cleanrooms for molding and assembly on site; the Santo Domingo site in the Dominican Republic offers cleanroom assembly and automation. The company said it adheres to scientific molding principles and is equipped with presses ranging in size from “near micro molding” to 1,400 tons.

Plastics injection molder Atalys LLC announced yesterday that it has acquired Schnipke Engraving Co. LLC. Both companies provide injection molding and related services to medical device OEMs. Atalys, based in Rochester, NY, said the acquisition will enhance its manufacturing capabilities, technology, and geographical footprint.

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The design is now getting more eyeballs — a 94,000-person German survey ranked Persomic at the top of the list in terms of bike grips. On top of that, the company just struck a deal with sizable German cycling wholesaler Paul Lange & Co. (a major Shimano distributor throughout Central Europe), meaning riders in Germany can now order Personomic products directly from their local bike shop.

“The whole idea behind using 3D printing is that a custom bike grip will fit each cyclist’s hands perfectly, which will lead to better distribution of pressure across the hands. This prevents widespread issues such as numb fingers when cycling,” Personomic co-founder Andreas Schulz explained to BikeRumor by email.

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"Our acquisition of Schnipke was driven by a focused strategy to deepen our capabilities, capacity, and technical superiority across the entire manufacturing process for medical device components,” said Vinc Ellerbrock, president and CEO of Atalys. “The addition of Schnipke adds two manufacturing sites for scalable growth, broadens our geographic presence and reach, enables us to serve a wider array of customers, and significantly augments our technical capabilities,” said Ellerbrock.

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Customization and the potential comforts therein do come with a price: a pair of Personomic grips start at around $97 MSRP, and shipping outside the EU costs another $4.

Schnipke has tooling and plastic injection molding operations at its headquarters in Ottoville, OH, and operates a second manufacturing facility in Tucson, AZ. The company is FDA registered and is certified to ISO 13485:2016.

Personomic claims its use of silicon over rubber or plastic results in grips that are hard-wearing, vibration-dampening, and non-sticky. Pair that with a grip that perfectly matches your hand, and you’ve got a seemingly winning combo.

That range could also soon include a whole other category of customized cycling touchpoint products — Schulz and his co-founders told us expansion into the saddle market is right around the corner.

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In February, Atalys announced that it is tripling the size of its existing facility in the Dominican Republic from 15,000 to 47,000 square feet through the addition of a new 32,000-square-foot building. The company said that the new building will be dedicated to manual assembly with complementary injection molding, pad printing, tool repair, and warehousing. The existing facility will become the company's primary plastics processing site focused on cleanroom injection molding as well as secondary operations such as testing and packaging.

Founded in 1967, Schnipke has established a reputation for building tools in-house and designing and engineering molds that meet the medical device industry's stringent requirements for precision at extremely tight tolerances, said the news release. The company claims on its website that it can mold within tolerances of +/-0.001 inches and as small as 0.02 grams in weight. Even smaller dimensions can be accommodated upon customer request.

“Although currently we only sell bike grips, we are a 3D-printing start-up at heart,” Schulz said. “We are currently also developing a custom bike saddle that is adapted to the individual cyclist and want to become the go-to cycling brand for customized, ergonomic bike accessories.”

Here’s how Personomic’s technology works. Place your hand on a sheet of computer paper and snap a photo. Send that photo to Personomic as a part of the ordering process — where you can also choose from five grip and locking ring colors, as well as your preferred texture pattern.

Earlier this week, another medical injection molder made news when Total Molding Services announced that it has been acquired by Haartz Family Holdings, changing its name to Moldgenix in the process.