Duke of York backs 3D printed knitwear at Pitch@Palace

Prince Andrew HRH the Duke of York has awarded 3D printed knitwear start-up Unmade as the winner of the fourth annual Pitch@Palace competition, beating 13 early-stage businesses including Appear Here (second place) and BabyLifebox (third place).

“A celebration of the innovation that entrepreneurship delivers to the UK”, Pitch@Palace launched last year and gives start-ups from across the country the opportunity to pitch to a room of some 300 business leaders, angel investors and mentors at St James’ Palace.

A total of £103m has been invested into the competition’s alumni companies since the event started last year.

Latest winner Unmade was founded by Hal Watts and enables customers to design knitwear which is then manufactured using a built-in 3D printer within 90 minutes at its Somerset factory.

Watts commented:

“Our technology effectively turns 20% of the manufacturing base into 3D printers for clothes. This means that we can produce 1,000 unique products at the same unit cost as if I was making 1,000 of the same design.”

Unmade will be launching a store later this month which will enable users to custom-design their own knitwear for a price of between £120 to £360.