Stride Soles
Custom orthotic insoles designed via smartphone foot scanning and remote podiatric review.
Website: https://www.stridesoles.com/
Cover Block
Public sources
| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| Name | Stride Soles |
| Tagline | Custom orthotic insoles designed via smartphone foot scanning and remote podiatric review. |
| Headquarters | San Francisco, California |
| Founded | 2023 [LinkedIn] |
| Stage | Seed [Caplight, November 2023] |
| Business Model | Direct-to-Consumer [INSEAD, April 2025] |
| Industry | Healthtech |
| Technology | AI / Machine Learning [Business Insider Markets, December 2024] |
| Geography | Global / Remote-First [INSEAD, April 2025] |
| Growth Profile | Venture Scale |
| Founding Team | Gregory Gerla; Dr. Zachary Cartun, MD [INSEAD, April 2025] |
| Funding Label | Seed |
| Total Disclosed | Approximately $45,000, based on INSEAD-reported €35,000 plus €10,000 award funding, converted approximately and marked as overlapping-risk disclosure in source coverage (estimated) [INSEAD, April 2025] |
Links
Public sources
- Website: https://www.stridesoles.com/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/stride-soles
Executive Summary
PUBLIC Stride Soles sells custom orthotic insoles through a telepodiatry workflow that uses smartphone foot scanning, gait analysis, and remote podiatric review, a setup that merits attention because the company appears to have found early customer demand with minimal disclosed capital [Business Insider Markets, December 2024] [INSEAD, April 2025] [The Garage SF newsletter, May 2025]. The founding story is straightforward: Gregory Gerla and Dr. Zachary Cartun, MD, began working on the concept after meeting through INSEAD, with public profiles tying Cartun to the clinical buildout and Gerla to market development and commercial outreach [INSEAD, April 2025] [INSEAD] [yourerie.com, July 2025].
The product thesis is that custom orthotics can be ordered without an in-person clinic visit, shifting a traditionally offline fitting process into a consumer-friendly digital flow while still retaining specialist review and German design and manufacturing support [Business Insider Markets, December 2024] [stridesoles.com] [Newton Beacon, April 2025]. That is a credible wedge if quality holds, because early traction signals are directionally positive: Brookline.News reported 560 pairs sold by January 2025, and INSEAD reported the company was approaching its 1,000th customer and had 15 physical-therapy clinics on board by April 2025 [Brookline.News, January 2025] [INSEAD, April 2025].
The team reads as commercially and clinically complementary rather than fully built out, with Gerla described in public materials as a former product manager and prior Procter & Gamble brand manager, while Cartun brings physician training, UMass Medical School, and an INSEAD MBA [INSEAD, April 2025] [INSEAD] [LinkedIn, retrieved 2025]. Public disclosures also place the Walter family in Oberkochen, Germany, at the center of orthotic design and production, which suggests the company is leaning on external domain depth instead of trying to build every capability in house from day one [stridesoles.com] [PR Newswire, July 2025].
Funding remains small and somewhat fragmented in the public record: Caplight lists a $37,000 2023 grant tied to Loyal VC, while INSEAD and Brookline.News describe a €35,000 venture competition award plus €10,000 from an additional venture-capital firm, and the overlap between those disclosures is not fully established [Caplight, November 2023] [INSEAD, April 2025] [Brookline.News, January 2025]. Over the next 12 to 18 months, the central question is whether Stride Soles can convert early direct-to-consumer momentum into repeatable economics and broader clinical distribution without compromising fit quality, refund rates, or fulfillment consistency, especially since some of the strongest growth claims, including $140,000 of revenue in six months and 95% unpaid-channel revenue, come from a single newsletter source [The Garage SF newsletter, May 2025].
Lightly corroborated -- Relies on named public sources including INSEAD, Brookline.News, Business Insider Markets, Caplight, and company materials, but several operating metrics and product details remain single-source or company-attributed.
Taxonomy Snapshot
| Axis | Value |
|---|---|
| Stage | Seed |
| Business Model | Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) |
| Industry / Vertical | Healthtech |
| Technology Type | AI / Machine Learning |
| Geography | Global / Remote-First |
| Growth Profile | Venture Scale |
| Founding Team | Co-Founders (2) |
| Funding | Seed, total disclosed approximately $45,000 |
How the Company Got Here
PUBLIC
Stride Soles presents as a very early telepodiatry company built around a simple consumer promise: get custom orthotic insoles without the usual clinic visit. The company website describes a workflow that uses smartphone foot scanning, gait analysis, and remote review to produce custom orthotics, and LinkedIn lists the business as headquartered in San Francisco and founded in 2023 [stridesoles.com, retrieved 2025] [LinkedIn, retrieved 2025]. Public materials name Gregory Gerla and Dr. Zachary Cartun, MD, as co-founders, with Gerla identified as CEO in external profile coverage and Cartun described by INSEAD as a founder tied to the company’s early development [LinkedIn, retrieved 2025] [INSEAD, April 2025].
The chronology is still short, but it is legible. LinkedIn dates the company to 2023, while the website frames the current product around a remote ordering flow and German orthotics design support, including Dietmar Walter and Dominik Walter on the team-facing materials [LinkedIn, retrieved 2025] [stridesoles.com, retrieved 2026]. By 2025, the public-facing site had expanded beyond insoles into adjacent footwear-oriented offerings such as orthopedic sandals, which suggests the company is testing a broader foot-health merchandising layer rather than staying confined to a single SKU [stridesoles.com, retrieved 2025].
Lightly corroborated -- Confirmed primarily by company website and LinkedIn, with partial founder corroboration from INSEAD.
Product and Technology
MIXED
The product is straightforward on first read: Stride Soles sells custom orthotic insoles through a remote workflow that replaces the usual clinic visit with a smartphone-led intake. Public descriptions across company materials and press coverage are consistent on the core sequence: users complete an intake, scan their feet with a smartphone, submit gait information, and receive a remote clinical or podiatric review that informs the final orthotic design [stridesoles.com, retrieved 2025] [Business Insider Markets, December 2024] [yourerie.com, July 2025]. The company and third-party profiles also describe the system as using AI-powered 3D foot scanning and gait analysis, although the available public sources do not establish the underlying model architecture or whether the AI claims refer to computer vision, rules-based fitting logic, or both [Business Insider Markets, December 2024] [INSEAD, April 2025].
The manufacturing layer appears to be a meaningful part of the product story, not a back-office detail. Stride says its orthotics are digitally designed in Germany by a team led by Dietmar Walter, with company materials placing that work in Oberkochen and describing Walter and Dominik Walter as the design leads behind the orthotic build process [stridesoles.com, retrieved 2026] [stridesoles.com, retrieved 2025]. Public product pages also position the offering across multiple use cases, including common foot-pain conditions, different shoe types, and several sports categories, and the site advertises a 180-day money-back guarantee alongside a redesign and re-ship policy for customers who remain uncomfortable after an initial adjustment period [stridesoles.com, retrieved 2025]. Those claims help explain the consumer appeal, but most of the breadth claims remain company-sourced rather than independently validated in a verified demo or clinical dataset.
What is visible from public evidence is a software-enabled orthotics workflow with a telehealth front end and an external expert manufacturing partner, rather than a fully disclosed proprietary medical platform. That distinction matters because the technical differentiation, based on public evidence, rests less on a named software stack and more on packaging convenience, remote review, and access to experienced orthotics designers without an in-person appointment [Business Insider Markets, December 2024] [INSEAD, April 2025] [stridesoles.com, retrieved 2026]. No public job-posting trail in the supplied evidence supports further tech-stack inference, so the safer read is that the company has shown a credible digital care path, while the depth of defensible software IP is still hard to verify from public materials alone.
Company-stated, unverified -- Core workflow is corroborated by company materials and third-party press, but several product breadth and manufacturing-detail claims in this section rely materially on company-owned sources.
Where the Demand Sits
Market context
PUBLIC The market matters now because Stride Soles is trying to compress a clinic-based orthotics workflow into a remote consumer purchase, and that only works if demand for foot-pain relief is both broad and willing to shift channels. The public record here is still thin on third-party market sizing. The only explicit market figure in the source set is a company-issued claim that the orthotics market is worth $6.7 billion [PR Newswire, July 2025]. That figure is usable as a directional reference, not as an independently verified TAM. More grounded than the headline size is the category shape implied by the product itself: custom orthotics sit at the intersection of medical devices, telehealth-enabled care pathways, and consumer wellness purchases, which gives the company more than one route to demand but also fragments the addressable market definition [Business Insider Markets, December 2024] [INSEAD, April 2025].
The near-term serviceable market appears narrower than any broad orthotics TAM would suggest. Public reporting describes initial demand from runners and people seeking relief from conditions such as flat feet and related foot pain, while INSEAD also reports 15 physical-therapy clinics on board by April 2025 [Brookline.News, January 2025] [INSEAD, April 2025]. That points to two early wedges: direct-to-consumer self-pay users and referral-adjacent clinical partners. The practical SOM, at least on public evidence, is therefore less about the full orthotics category and more about digitally reachable patients who are comfortable completing a smartphone scan and buying a customized device without an in-person podiatry visit [Business Insider Markets, December 2024] [yourerie.com, July 2025].
| Market lens | Sizing claim | Source treatment |
|---|---|---|
| Orthotics market | $6.7 billion | Company-issued market claim, not independent [PR Newswire, July 2025] |
| Early customer traction proxy | 560 pairs sold by January 2025 | Reported operating datapoint, not market size [Brookline.News, January 2025] |
| Channel expansion proxy | 15 physical-therapy clinics by April 2025 | Reported distribution foothold, not market size [INSEAD, April 2025] |
The table reads less like a full market model than a constraint set. Public sources support category relevance and some early demand signals, but they do not yet support a rigorous TAM, SAM, and SOM build from independent research.
Demand drivers are easier to substantiate than market size. Multiple sources describe the core consumer promise as convenience: smartphone foot scanning, gait analysis, remote podiatric review, and fulfillment without a clinic visit [Business Insider Markets, December 2024] [yourerie.com, July 2025]. For a category historically tied to appointments, foam impressions, and specialist access, lower-friction intake is the clearest tailwind. There is also evidence that the company is not relying only on pure DTC discovery, since clinic participation suggests some hybrid demand formation through physical-therapy settings [INSEAD, April 2025].
A second tailwind is channel efficiency, although the evidence is softer. The Garage SF newsletter reported that Stride Soles bootstrapped to $140,000 in revenue in six months and attributed 95% of revenue to unpaid channels [The Garage SF newsletter, May 2025]. Because that claim is newsletter-sourced and not independently corroborated, it should be treated cautiously. Even so, if directionally correct, it suggests a category where pain-point-driven search, referrals, and founder-led distribution may matter more than heavy paid acquisition, at least at small scale [The Garage SF newsletter, May 2025].
Adjacent and substitute markets cut both ways. The obvious substitutes are traditional in-person podiatry, orthotics dispensed through clinics, and other footwear-based interventions such as condition-specific insoles or orthopedic sandals sold through retail and specialty channels [Newton Beacon, April 2025] [stridesoles.com]. In practice, that means Stride is not only competing within a custom orthotics niche. It is also asking consumers to choose remote assessment over office visits, and to treat footwear support as a direct online purchase rather than a clinician-managed procurement decision [Business Insider Markets, December 2024] [yourerie.com, July 2025].
The regulatory and macro setup is mixed rather than prohibitive on public evidence. The enabling force is broad consumer comfort with remote health workflows, which makes telepodiatry a more legible purchase proposition than it would have been a decade ago [Business Insider Markets, December 2024]. The limiting force is that any health-adjacent consumer device business must balance accessibility with medical credibility, especially when public-facing claims span multiple conditions. The sources show Stride leaning on physician involvement and German podiatry expertise to support that credibility, but the public file does not establish reimbursement exposure, regulatory clearances, or payer integration as current market drivers [INSEAD, April 2025] [stridesoles.com]. That leaves the market story centered on self-pay convenience and clinical trust rather than on insurance-led expansion.
Company-stated, unverified -- This section relies on one company-issued market size claim, supplemented by independent but limited traction and channel evidence from INSEAD, Brookline.News, Business Insider Markets, and other public sources.
Competitive Landscape
Competitive map
MIXED Stride Soles appears to sit between traditional custom orthotics clinics and consumer health e-commerce, with its pitch centered on replacing an in-person fitting visit with smartphone scanning, gait capture, remote podiatric review, and direct fulfillment [Business Insider Markets, December 2024] [stridesoles.com] [INSEAD, April 2025]. The evidence set does not name direct startup rivals, which matters here because the practical comparison set is broader than venture-backed telepodiatry alone: legacy podiatrists and pedorthists still own the highest-trust clinical channel, while over-the-counter insole brands and physical-therapy referrals remain the lower-friction substitute for many consumers.
That leaves three segments to watch. First, the incumbent clinical segment includes podiatry offices and orthotics specialists that can diagnose, fit, and adjust in person, an advantage Stride cannot fully replicate through a remote workflow [Brookline.News, January 2025] [Newton Beacon, April 2025]. Second, the digital challenger segment includes telehealth-style foot care and remote orthotics workflows, where Stride is early but not insulated because its core promise, convenience plus customization, is intelligible and reproducible if a larger player decides the category is worth pursuing [Business Insider Markets, December 2024]. Third, the substitute segment includes standard insoles and clinic-recommended alternatives, which compete less on custom precision than on immediacy, price, and existing patient relationships.
Stride's edge today looks real but narrow. The strongest public evidence points to workflow compression rather than proprietary regulation or scale: the company combines smartphone 3D foot scanning, gait analysis, and remote podiatric review, then routes design work to a German orthotics team led by Dietmar Walter [Business Insider Markets, December 2024] [stridesoles.com] [INSEAD, April 2025]. That can matter if fit quality holds up, because custom orthotics have historically depended on frictive clinic logistics. Still, the durability of this edge is not yet established. Smartphone capture and remote review are product features, not obvious moats on their own, and the available public record does not show exclusive distribution, insurer access, regulatory barriers that protect the model, or a uniquely capitalized balance sheet.
The more interesting signal is distribution efficiency, though it is less firmly corroborated. A May 2025 community newsletter said Stride reached $140,000 in revenue in six months and attributed 95% of revenue to unpaid channels [The Garage SF newsletter, May 2025]. If that holds, the company may have found an efficient early wedge in founder-led demand generation, clinical referrals, or word of mouth. The problem is perishability. Unpaid channels often weaken as a company moves beyond founder networks, and Stride's disclosed funding base remains very small, with public records pointing to sub-$50,000 awards or grants rather than a conventional seed round [Caplight, November 2023] [INSEAD, April 2025]. That limits room for paid acquisition experiments, broad provider sales coverage, and post-purchase service operations if returns or redesign requests rise.
Stride is most exposed where incumbents are structurally stronger. In-person podiatry clinics and orthotics specialists own the trust layer for complex cases, follow-up adjustments, and diagnosis-linked care, while physical-therapy clinics already sit inside referral flows that can be hard for a consumer brand to displace [Brookline.News, January 2025] [INSEAD, April 2025]. Even Stride's own traction suggests this pressure: INSEAD reported 15 physical-therapy clinics on board by April 2025, which reads less like a pure DTC escape from the clinical channel and more like partial dependence on it [INSEAD, April 2025]. The company is also exposed to any competitor, named or not yet named in public reporting, that can pair remote capture with deeper reimbursement expertise, broader provider distribution, or faster domestic manufacturing.
Over the next 18 months, the most plausible competitive outcome is a sorting between convenience-led remote players and trust-led clinical incumbents. Winner if X: Stride, if the remote workflow continues converting consumers and clinic partners without a meaningful rise in refunds, redesigns, or acquisition costs, because that would show the product can clear the category's core skepticism around fit and efficacy at a lower-friction entry point [stridesoles.com] [The Garage SF newsletter, May 2025]. Loser if Y: traditional podiatry-only channels, if a meaningful share of mild-to-moderate orthotics demand proves serviceable without an office visit. The reverse is also easy to imagine. If complex-case outcomes, repeat adjustments, or channel economics favor in-person care, then remote-first orthotics platforms, including Stride, risk remaining a useful niche rather than a category-defining distributor.
Lightly corroborated -- Based primarily on company materials, local news profiles, and INSEAD coverage; the section contains no named startup competitor set in the source record, so several comparative judgments are analytical inferences grounded in public product and channel evidence.
Opportunity
PUBLIC
If Stride Soles executes, the prize is not simply a better insole brand, it is a scaled telepodiatry platform that moves a historically clinic-bound orthotics purchase into a repeatable digital workflow across consumers and referral channels [Business Insider Markets, December 2024] [INSEAD, April 2025].
The clearest upside case is that Stride becomes a credible default for remote custom orthotics in the part of the market that values convenience but still wants clinical review. That outcome is reachable, not merely rhetorical, because the company has already shown early signal across three pieces that usually arrive separately at this stage: a consumer ordering flow built around smartphone scanning and gait analysis, a clinical review layer tied to co-founder Dr. Zachary Cartun, and early channel adoption with 15 physical-therapy clinics reported by April 2025 [Business Insider Markets, December 2024] [INSEAD, April 2025] [yourerie.com, July 2025]. The traction figures remain small and unevenly sourced, but they do suggest the product is clearing the first market test: Brookline.News reported 560 pairs sold by January 2025, while INSEAD said the company was approaching its 1,000th customer by April 2025 [Brookline.News, January 2025] [INSEAD, April 2025].
The paths to outsized scale are still narrow, but they are legible from the public record.
| Scenario | What happens | Catalyst | Why it's plausible |
|---|---|---|---|
| DTC orthotics brand with clinical credibility | Stride becomes a nationally recognized direct-to-consumer custom orthotics brand, using remote assessment to convert customers who would otherwise defer or avoid an in-person podiatry visit. | Consumer adoption accelerates after the September 2024 direct-to-consumer launch and the company continues compounding unpaid acquisition [Newton Beacon, April 2025] [The Garage SF newsletter, May 2025]. | The product is already built for at-home ordering through smartphone scanning and remote review, and the company reported 95% of revenue from unpaid channels, which suggests early organic demand if the figure holds under scale [Business Insider Markets, December 2024] [The Garage SF newsletter, May 2025]. |
| Hybrid care network through PT clinics | Stride uses physical-therapy clinics as a low-friction acquisition and trust layer, then expands into a broader referral network that blends telehealth intake with practitioner distribution. | A clinic partnership motion scales beyond the 15 physical-therapy clinics cited by INSEAD, giving the company a repeatable B2B2C wedge [INSEAD, April 2025]. | Clinics already appear in the operating model, and orthotics are a category where practitioner endorsement can lower customer hesitation and returns [INSEAD, April 2025] [Brookline.News, January 2025]. |
| Telepodiatry infrastructure layer | Stride evolves from a branded seller into the workflow and manufacturing layer for remote orthotics, with scanning, questionnaire, clinical review, and design coordination packaged into a partner-facing system. | The company standardizes its intake, gait analysis, and remote review process so third-party clinics can use it without building software internally [yourerie.com, July 2025] [Business Insider Markets, December 2024]. | The underlying workflow is already more than ecommerce. Public descriptions consistently point to a structured digital intake, gait analysis, and expert review process that could support white-labeled or embedded distribution over time [Business Insider Markets, December 2024] [INSEAD, April 2025]. |
What compounding could look like here is fairly concrete. Every additional order should improve three things at once: the company gathers more foot-scan and gait data, it learns which intake flows convert and which redesigns reduce dissatisfaction, and it accumulates social proof across both consumers and clinics [Business Insider Markets, December 2024] [INSEAD, April 2025] [stridesoles.com]. If the reported mix of nearly 1,000 customers, 15 clinic relationships, and 95% unpaid-channel revenue is directionally right, the early flywheel is already visible: low-friction acquisition feeds order volume, order volume sharpens the review and design process, and better outcomes make referral-based growth cheaper over time [INSEAD, April 2025] [The Garage SF newsletter, May 2025].
There is also a subtler form of defensibility in the operating model. Orthotics is not a pure software market, so the moat would likely sit in workflow reliability rather than in code alone. Stride's public positioning combines smartphone capture, medical review, and a specialized German design and manufacturing partner, which could be hard for a basic consumer brand to replicate cleanly if quality control matters as much as convenience [Business Insider Markets, December 2024] [stridesoles.com, retrieved 2026]. That does not create a classic network effect, but it can create process lock-in if clinics and repeat buyers learn that the product works predictably.
The upper bound is easiest to frame through market size rather than through a clean public comparable, because no named peer or transaction multiple is established in the provided evidence. PR Newswire cited a $6.7 billion orthotics market, though that figure should be treated as a company-issued market claim rather than independent sizing [PR Newswire, July 2025]. Using that market figure only as a scenario frame, a company that captured 1% of a $6.7 billion category would imply roughly $67 million in annual revenue (scenario, not a forecast), and 3% would imply roughly $201 million in annual revenue (scenario, not a forecast) [PR Newswire, July 2025]. For a startup that had reported $140,000 in revenue over six months by May 2025, those numbers are plainly distant, but they help define the magnitude of the prize if Stride proves that remote orthotics can move from niche convenience purchase to trusted care pathway [The Garage SF newsletter, May 2025].
Company-stated, unverified -- This section relies on a mix of independent local news and INSEAD reporting, but key market sizing and some traction inputs are company-issued or single-source claims [Brookline.News, January 2025] [INSEAD, April 2025] [PR Newswire, July 2025] [The Garage SF newsletter, May 2025].
Sources
Public sources
[LinkedIn, retrieved 2025] Stride Soles | LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/company/stride-soles
[Caplight, November 2023] Caplight profile for Stride Soles | https://caplight.com
[INSEAD, April 2025] Striding Towards Success: The Inspiring Journey of Dr. Zac Cartun and Gregory Gerla | https://www.insead.edu/alumni/stories/striding-towards-success-inspiring-journey-dr-zac-cartun-and-gregory-gerla
[Business Insider Markets, December 2024] Stride Soles Launches Advanced Telepodiatry Solution for Custom Orthotics | https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/stride-soles-launches-advanced-telepodiatry-solution-for-custom-orthotics-1034082541
[The Garage SF newsletter, May 2025] See What’s Happening @The Garage SF | https://tgsf.substack.com/p/see-whats-happening-the-garage-sf-620
[INSEAD] Zachary Cartun MBA’23D | https://www.insead.edu/bio/zachary-cartun-mba23d
[yourerie.com, July 2025] Stride Soles feature on remote orthotics workflow | https://www.yourerie.com
[stridesoles.com] Custom Orthotics and Insoles with Gait Analysis | Stride Soles | https://www.stridesoles.com/
[Newton Beacon, April 2025] Sole Purpose: Newton Centre doctor creates podiatry app | https://www.newtonbeacon.org/sole-purpose-newton-centre-doctor-creates-podiatry-app/
[Brookline.News, January 2025] A Brookline doctor tries to update podiatry for the 21st century | https://brookline.news/a-brookline-doctor-tries-to-update-podiatry-for-the-21st-century/
[PR Newswire, July 2025] Stride Soles Disrupts $6.7 Billion Orthotics Market with Direct-to-Consumer, Tech-Enabled Custom Insoles | https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/stride-soles-disrupts-6-7-billion-orthotics-market-with-direct-to-consumer-tech-enabled-custom-insoles-302510747.html
[stridesoles.com, retrieved 2025] Custom Orthotics and Insoles with Gait Analysis | Stride Soles | https://www.stridesoles.com/
[stridesoles.com, retrieved 2026] About Stride Soles | https://stridesoles.com/about/
Articles about Stride Soles
- A 90,000-Pair German Pedorthist Powers a Digital Foot Clinic — The startup's digital workflow for custom insoles, backed by a third-generation German workshop, is approaching 1,000 customers.