Clew

Jakob, Johannes and Matthias, three former Munich students and enthusiastic snowboarders, founded CLEW. They wanted to save themselves the hassle of buckling and unbuckling after every lift ride without giving up the unsurpassed riding feeling of a buckle binding. Until then, there was no snowboard step-in binding on the market that met their expectations.

Thanks to the university module "Methods of Product Development" in the last semester of their mechanical engineering studies, they were able to develop a new type of step-in snowboard binding using 3D printing processes and make it tangible. wanting to keep the unsurpassed feel of a classic ratchet binding. That's how they came up with the idea to design a binding in two parts. The base should be fixed to the snowboard. The detachable highback should be able to be strapped to any soft boot and fixed to the board with a click system.

Confident in the new concept, they submitted our business plan to a Munich ideas competition for start-ups and won the first place. All of the prize money was invested back into further product development.

At the ISPO sports trade fair in January 2019, Clew presented the first fully functional, but not yet saleable prototype of the CLEW binding. At the same time, we began a months-long search for the right suppliers, manufacturers of individual parts, as well as machines and a suitable production facility. From the very beginning, they wanted to rely on quality work "Made in Germany" for our entire production.

Shortly thereafter, they presented the freedom 1 binding in the TV show "Die Höhle der Löwen", which was broadcast on October 19, 2019. During the course of the show, we had over 90,000 store visitors and, accordingly, numerous pre-orders for the coming winter. An early and groundbreaking step in CLEW's history.

Just one week after another successful appearance at ISPO in February 2020, the global pandemic became an unprecedented challenge for the entire industry. More and more ski resorts were forced to shut down, resulting in a drastic drop in sales for products like our snowboard bindings.

The boys chose to use the time during the shutdown as an opportunity and put all of the team's focus on improving our binding. They started polling our community, talking to pro riders, developing additional test rigs. We scrutinized every single part, down to the smallest screw. With our first major update, the completely redesigned CLEW20 Edition,  & finally developed a successor model in record time, allowing us to take the big step into other international markets like Japan and South Korea the following season.

Because they had personally assembled each binding, they knew exactly where to start to increase our volume while maintaining our high quality standards. CLEW is now represented in over 100 stores and 40 countries & Snowfit is proud to be Clews first Stockest in England.

With growth comes a great responsibility! Clew set themselves the highest possible goals and aim to be a pioneer and role model not only in the field of technology, but also in social and environmental matters.

The latest release, the CLEW® Freedom 1.0, sets new standards. Will be available at Snowfit from September 2024 ready to take your snowboarding experience to the next level and continue to write a new chapter in the Clew story!