# The SMART Tire Company NASA-Proven Airless Tires Entering Commercial Deployment ## Elevator pitch We make the world's first fuel efficient, eco-friendly, lightweight & smooth riding airless tires. - Canonical URL: https://wefunder.com/the.smart.tire.company - Entity ID: wefunder:company:78289 - Last updated: 2026-07-03T02:38:59Z - Generated at: 2026-07-03T03:17:10Z ## Quick facts - LOI Signed with Lime for Fleet Evaluation Program - Automotive Proof-of-Concept with Hyundai/Kia - TIME Best Inventions Award + 20,000+ Customer Waitlist - Trusted by Boeing, Blue Origin, Intuitive Machines & Other Aerospace Leaders - Manufacturing Scale-Up Path Established for Commercial Deployment - Protected by Granted Patents, Trade Secrets & Exclusive NASA Licenses ## Active fundraises - wefunder:fundraise:129577: 4(a)(6) successful (USD) - wefunder:fundraise:129576: 4(a)(6) successful (USD) - wefunder:fundraise:57253: 4(a)(6) successful (USD) - wefunder:fundraise:57254: 4(a)(6) successful (USD) - wefunder:fundraise:42310: 4(a)(6) successful (USD) - wefunder:fundraise:42311: 4(a)(6) successful (USD) ## Story There are over 6 billion tires on the road today.Air is the weakest part of every tire.For over 100 years, air pressure has been the enabling technology inside nearly every tire because no material could replicate what air does. SMART Tire is developing a new class of load-bearing structures designed to replicate the benefits of air without relying on air pressure.Validated by NASA and now entering commercial deployment, SMART Tire is building products designed to eliminate flats, reduce maintenance, extend durability, enable retreading, and lower total cost of ownership.If successful, the same technology could extend beyond tires into future mobility, aerospace, defense, robotics, and industrial systems that rely on durable, compliant load-bearing structures.SMART Tire's Advanced Mobility SystemsSMART Tire's Commercial Proof & LOIWhy Now for SMART Tire?For over a century, tires have depended on air.SMART Tire has spent years proving they don't have to.Built for the Moon. Scaling for Earth.For over 100 years, the tire industry has relied on air because nothing else could replicate what air does.We transformed a NASA-derived innovation into a commercially deployable technology. The next step is fleet validation, manufacturing scale-up, and commercial adoption.The greatest value is rarely created when a technology is invented. It is created when that technology reaches scale. With commercial launch and fleet validation ahead, we believe SMART Tire is approaching that inflection point.Tires are our first application. Our long-term vision is to create a new class of load-bearing systems for the future of mobility - from passenger vehicles and commercial transportation to aerospace, defense, and industrial platforms.Beginning with mobility. Expanding far beyond it.The opportunity won't wait.Just as electric vehicles became a powerful alternative to gas-powered vehicles, we believe airless tires will become a powerful alternative to traditional tires. The transition has already begun, and we're building SMART Tire to lead it. We see tires as just the beginning.-- The SMART Tire Company, Inc.Reimagining the wheel.®Reinventing the tire.®Beyond Air™The next 100 years. ## FAQ 1. **Hi. Once you go to market, what are your revenue goals for the first 5 years?** - Hi Leonardo, as a pre-revenue startup we're not too keen on imagining exact 5 year projections. What I will say is that we expect to deliver thousands of units very early on to early adopters next year, for starters. The buzz with cyclists is instant (check out our press page for some early coverage). From there, fleet sales are a fast growth option, especially in an urban setting with durability concerns. You'll notice that one of our partners also produces electric scooters - the 3 major fl... 2. **Hi Brain, I saw your new bicycle tire, which is really interesting. I life in the Netherlands, a bicycle country and most of the daily commute here in the Netherlands is done with a bicycle. One thing that is not quite obvious from you product video, is the tire pressure, or i...** - Hi Marc, the final tire will have an integrated rubber (or similar) tread. Regarding the stiffness, we are working on some variable pressure designs. As you can imagine, you have to get a little clever with that in a solid tire, but there may be some ways... 3. **Can you describe how the traction and efficiency compares to traditional tires?** - Yes! Generally speaking we will have a lot of the same traction as a conventional tire, because we integrate rubber treads. That said, there are a couple of key advantages: 1) we're never under or over inflated 2) depending on the application, we can design the structure for a flatter footprint = more traction Regarding efficiency, we're targeting rolling resistance very close to a pneumatic tire. Our first prototype was on a 700c wheel, where we used one SMART tire, and one inflated to 100 P... 4. **Is it noisier than a traditional tire? And do you reach an equivalent maximum rotational speed?** - Unlike many other non-pneumatics, these tires are not noisy. For example the Tweel is quite loud (and actually gets debris stuck it in, whoops). I don't have a figure but maximum rotational speed offhand, but well beyond operational requirements. 5. **What price point for bicycle tires are you looking to pitch at and are you expecting them to be a standard retrofit or would consumers need to buy a new wheel?** - These will initially be at the high end of the market, but we're working on several tranches of cost reduction related to both materials and manufacturing. Please check out our FAQ for more details: https://wefunder.com/the.smart.tire.company/faq We intend to support retrofit for common sizes, as well as an integrated solution. ## Team - Earl Cole (CEO) - Brian Yennie (CTO) - James Benzing (Chief Tire Engineer) ## Recent posts - Elon Musk: “There will be Airless Tires” (2026-04-24T03:00:00Z) - A Thought on Early Investments (2026-04-24T02:00:00Z) - Timezone Check (3 hours) (2026-04-24T01:07:56Z) - 100: This is It (2026-04-23T21:20:13Z) - Built to Scale - Not Just to Invent (2026-04-23T12:00:00Z) - Final Day to Invest (2026-04-22T19:05:54Z) - Why We're Starting with Two Wheels (2026-04-21T22:29:54Z) - Moon Base [Only 2 days left] (2026-04-21T16:00:00Z) - SMART Reminder: Only 3 Days Left! (2026-04-20T21:07:29Z) - This is The Moment to Decide (2026-04-20T05:06:54Z) - Defense Wins (Final Four To Invest) (2026-04-19T21:48:53Z) - Global Crisis [5 Days Left] (2026-04-18T19:52:59Z) - We Didn't Build SMART Tire to Scale Slowly (2026-04-17T17:18:42Z) - Final Window: What Happens Next for SMART Tire (2026-04-10T22:07:05Z) - NASA Countdown (20 Days to Invest) (2026-04-04T01:11:17Z) ## Q&A - Q: You should at least honor the original 10M valuation up to 1M raised. I've never seen a company increase the valuation by 5X in the middle of the raise. There's no way in hell I'd invest at a 50M valuation knowing it was 10M a day ago. If only you had ridiculous sales volume or contracts to justify that... - A: Hi Leonardo. I think there is some confusion. All prior terms are being honored, as we outlined in our latest update here: https://wefunder.com/updates/142976-thank-you-amp-important-updates Also, please note that a valuation cap is not the same as a valuation. All notes would convert at the price of the round in which they convert, if that valuation is lower than $50M. This is not the same as increasing our company valuation by 5x. I believe the overwhelming interest in this round is quote a good thing for anyone investing at this time. - Q: I am very disappointed to see the valuation cap changed in this campaign. I’ve been waiting for all the legal paperwork to be filed so that I can do my thorough due diligence. This is very disheartening to see now that my investment will be treated differently than others during the same campaign cycle. I understand that “testing the waters” is new but I don’t think the intent was to haphazardly switch up on potential investors. - A: Hi Tawana, I'm sorry to hear that. I believe we've addressed all of these questions previously. There is no way for us to do paperwork any faster, as that is 100% dependent on needing a financial audit and SEC paperwork that could only be started after March 15th. Regarding your investment being treated differently, nothing was done haphazardly on our end. Quite the opposite, as we consulted with WeFunder, investors, and others to follow all rules and give the fairest offering possible. Having multiple tiers for early bird investments is a normal feature of the platform, testing the waters is in fact partly for this purpose (gauging interest to finalize terms), and if we had remained married to a lower cap, the campaign would have already ended a week ago due to dilution concerns. Thus, thousands of investors would have lost any opportunity to invest at all. Again, I'm sorry this negatively affected your experience, but I hope you can see another perspective. - Q: A 10M cap vs a 50M cap makes a huge difference. If not then why don't you keep the original 10M cap? I see many companies raising up to 5M but you are the only ones that raised the cap by 5X just because you had momentum and decided to take advantage of that. I would even understand a small increase but 5x with nothing to support it??? And you posted the update 1 day ago, when the 500K limit was almost reached. You should have disclosed it under Investment Terms from the beginning so nobody would question it. You got to 500K in 4 days but after the cap increase I noticed that you barely raised 10K so I guess I'm not the only one that thinks this is absurd... - A: I believe I addressed all of this in detail on your prior comment. Please drop us an email if you'd like to discuss further. - Q: Would it be possible to give some colour on the cost reduction roadmap for the materials? I understand it may be early stages. If you can make this cost competitive with normal tyres I think you have unicorn potential. - A: Of course! The FAQ is pretty long but covers a lot of this (https://wefunder.com/the.smart.tire.company/faq). Let me give the short version here as well. 1) Modeling - use the optimal amount of material for the application. NASA has the only modeling capabilities in the world for this (from rover work) and will help us get this exactly right. 2) Volume - of course with volume, price comes down. Upon success, SMA tires will involve MUCH longer runs that normal, such that any current pricing is misleadingly high. 3) Manufacturing - 80 to 90% of the cost of these materials happens in the processing, not the raw materials. This is a lot of wiggle room to improve. 4) Materials - alternatives are a heavy subject of research, some of which are already much less expensive, and sufficient depending on the application. For example, a bicycle has lower requirements than an airplane. I hope this helps and thanks for the compliment and great question! - Q: Interesting concept. One important aspect I don't see addressed here is the difference in friction coefficient of rubber and alloy. Unlike an alloy, rubber has significant friction on pavement which provides for much needed traction as well as stopping capacity. How do you meet or exceed these essential characteristics with alloy? - A: Please check out our FAQ listed above or on the website - the tires will be integrated with rubber treads. - Q: Hello, I have read the update, but I don’t understand, the first 500k would have valuation cap of 10million and after 500k investors will have valuation cap of 50million, doesn’t that mean right know if I invest, I will have to pay 5 times more in value for same amount of shares comparing to those invested before 500k, what’s the difference between investors who invest prior the 500k goal and right now because you said it’s not like buying at 5 times higher of the price - A: Hi Jonathan, thanks for your question. There is a difference between a SAFE note with a valuation cap, and a company valuation. The company does not have *any* valuation until it sells shares in a priced round. When that occurs, you will be converted to shares at the price of that round, or at your valuation cap, whichever is lower. So yes, the early bird investors did receive extra incentive (that's the idea of early bird!), but the 50M cap still means you will have the same price or better than future investors. Is a lower cap better? Of course. But the only way for you to end up paying 5x is for us to break 50M+ valuation on our next round... and then that means you just got a discount over everyone in that round. TL;DR; the early birds are the best deal, you would be the 2nd best deal, and investors in the next round would be the 3rd best deal. - Q: In the pitch you mention that you are a licensee of the SMA Tire suite. Is that license exclusive? - A: All of the details are still pending, which is typical for an exclusive deal of this magnitude (more than one patent). The government licensing process is a series of legal steps and approvals that take several months to complete. We're almost there, though! - Q: It has been quite some time since the last update. Any chance you will be providing an update in near future? - A: Hi Mary, we just posted a new update about our work with Hyundai and expect to have additional updates before the end of the year. Thank you for your ongoing support and interest! - Q: I put some money in the last round, and have not heard a word from anyone....no confirmation, no nothing. Is that normal? - A: Hi Joel - all investments are handled through the WeFunder portal. You should receive periodic email updates when we post them here, and can access your investment contracts through the WeFunder website. Also please don't hesitate to drop us an email directly at hello@smarttirecompany.com and let us know that you're a WeFunder investor! - Q: Hi, are there any updates about a rough expected release date? (Just had a puncture yesterday, and remembered about this.) :) - A: Hi Alejrando, please stay tuned to our campaign page and update posts for more details about launch dates. - Q: Hi Brian, I understand the first product will be brought to market this year. Do you currently have any pre-sale contracts? - A: Hi Tanner, currently all of our B2B relationships are under NDA and I cannot comment on specifics. We do have strong interest from both the bicycle and scooter markets. - Q: Is the tire applied to a standard wheel whether from a bike, motorcycle, car, or commercial vehicle or will it require a proprietary wheel? Is the tire installed using conventional tire installation equipment or will that be a proprietary process? I'm trying to understand other barriers to market other than educating consumers on the product itself. - A: Hi Randy, the tires are used with standard wheels. We do have some proprietary methods involved in the fastening, but we are working hard to keep the process as simple as possible. If you look at the work involved in installing tubeless tires on a bike today, or swapping a flat on an eBike, we aim to be on the easier side of that, at least. That said, we will likely recommend certain wheel models, and possibly ship integrated sets for convenience. But, we place a very high value on compatibility. We want these in consumer hands! - Q: How would these tires, specifically the radial, compare with Michelin's Uptis airless tires? https://michelinmedia.com/michelin-uptis/ Besides the obvious that is.. - A: That's a pretty broad topic to address in the Q&A, but I would start by saying that the Uptis is a semi-solid tire, using completely different materials. The previous generation, the Tweel, had a lot of problems that restricted it to very small niche applications. We are using a completely different construct with different materials. All of the major tire companies are rubber & elastomer experts, and tend to solve every problem that way (hammer, meet nail). We are experts in shape memory alloys, which is a completely different branch of technology from the space program. Regarding specific properties, some of this is covered in our FAQ and videos, but you can expect things like high load index (I doubt an Uptis would fare well on airplanes), high temperature ranges (made for Mars), quiet operation (the Tweel was extremely loud), extreme resiliency (try deforming an Uptis to the rim and see what happens) and long life. Ultimately, there is probably room in the market for more than 1 solution, but semi-solid tires have been around a long time, and not gotten much traction. Maybe the Uptis cracks that nut, but I wouldn't hold my breath. - Q: Hello, you sound amazing. Just read about you today. How do you justify the $50m valuation? Still have a long road ahead to realizing $. Thanks. - A: Hi Jeremy, thanks for your question! We definitely place a high value on IP, and our partnerships (several are not yet public, which unfortunately we cannot control, the first we've announced is Hyundai/Kia). The technology itself has more than $10M of of research & development behind it at NASA, to which we've patented major improvements on top of that over the past 2 years. We're actually ahead of the biggest players - Goodyear, Michelin, Bridgestone in the space race and working with more teams than any of them. Regarding $/revenue: I would add that we have paid work with 3x different aforementioned partners so far and thus ARE in revenue this year. LTV budgets will be quite large over next few years from which we'll get our fair share. Next year we'll have at least three different $$ streams (lunar, cycling, scooters). We DO have a long road ahead to achieve all of our goals, but in a market environment where a lot of digital "tech" companies are turning out to be overvalued, we have science-based physical product, made in the US, that is also something (tires) that every household owns today. If you give us, say, a 5% chance of becoming one of the major tire manufacturers, the ROI is already there (with some wins in between). Hope that helps, and appreciate the kind words! - Q: How long do you expect until the Form C gets filed and this can change from a Reservation Campaign to a true Capital Raise? - A: It should be by the end of this week, we are finalizing the document now having completed our financial audit. My understanding is that the SEC can take a couple of days to process it, but then we should be good to go!