Here at Ekster, our mission is simple; we make good-looking gear that saves you time. First we reimagined the traditional wallet, making it easier to use and harder to lose. Now we're upgrading the rest of your carry essentials so you have time to focus on what really matters.
How We Started The Next Generation of Wallets
I’m Olivier and that’s Rick, we’re the founders of Ekster. We met during a Fulbright scholarship in the US with a shared frustration: we were sick of old bifold wallets. We thought, “What would a wallet built for the 21st century look like?”
We agreed that the stagnant wallet industry was in dire need of some progress. So we pitched our idea for a slim, card-focused, technologically advanced wallet to Kickstarter pro, Richard. We never imagined the immense responsive we eventually received.
Our Goal is to Save You Time
We make wallets, bags and accessories that save you time, so you can get back to living. Our ecosystem of connected carry goods has already helped over a million people speed up their day.
Since the beginning, our goal has been to create products that are intuitively attuned to the movements and needs of modern life. If you can control your lights and speaker with your phone, why not your wallet? We wanted to bring this same technology that allows your tech to talk to each other into your most important everyday carry products like wallets and keys.
Who We Are, Who We've Become
We were just two 22-year-old Dutch guys with an idea, banking on our belief that we could make products better. One Kickstarter campaign and 5 years later, our 40 passionate team-members are spread across 11 countries with a shared mission.
Our Tech
All our products are designed to help you avoid the annoying stuff, like tracking down a lost wallet after a night out or canceling stolen credit cards. This way, you can focus on what really matters.
RFID blocking
Safeguarding your personal information is one the areas most wallets are lacking in. Most contactless cards are RFID skimmable, meaning the information can be stolen from them in public by holding a reader in close proximity to your wallet or pocket. All our wallets offer RFID-safe pockets for your cards, so you’ll never have to worry about identity theft or RFID skimming.
Tracking capabilities
The worst thing besides getting your wallet stolen is losing your wallet yourself. We all know that feeling in the pit of your stomach when you remember the last place you saw it was on the bar. To avoid this situation, we created special solar-powered tracking devices, roughly the size of a credit card, that you can use to pinpoint the location of your wallet worldwide.
Our Materials
When we build something, we intend for it to last. We invest in the creation and discovery of innovative materials, like military-grade 3K carbon fiber, vegan leather made from recycled windshields and water-saving ECCO DriTan leather, centered around the principles of sustainability, durability and reliability.
Recycled windshields
We made a breakthrough in sustainable vegan leather when we created the world's first wallet made from recycled car windshields. In a state-of-the-art recycling process, we are able to extract the PVB present in windshields and transform it into a scratch proof material that is indistinguishable from real leather.
From each end-of-life car, two kilos of material can be extracted. That means 600 dead cars yield 3000 yards of vegan leather, enough to produce 250k+ environmentally-responsible wallets!
ECCO DriTan Leather
We source our leather from ECCO, whose world-renowned tanneries are single-handedly reinventing the way leather is produced. They have devised a new type of leather, DriTan, that saves 25 million liters of water annually, helping to prevent the production of wastewater. They also only use hides that are a byproduct of the meat industry, emphasizing the importance of animal welfare in the industry.
Space-grade aluminum
Our Aluminum collection showcases a metal addition to the family of materials at Ekster, Space-Grade Aluminum, as in, used by NASA to make a rocket ship, space-grade. The unique properties of aluminum make it ideal for a wallet: it’s incredibly lightweight (⅓ less than steel), it’s rust-proof, it’s resistant to heat, and it’s recyclable.
3K Carbon Fiber
The 3K Carbon Fiber Cardholder collection is the newest addition to Ekster's line of tactical wallets. This high-tech metal is 10 times stronger than steel but even lighter than aluminum, offering unparalleled durability. It comes in 2 unique patterns; Forged Carbon and Classic Carbon. The former is a monotone marbled pattern that, because of how it's made, is unique to each wallet. The latter is a classic checkered pattern made from weaving different carbon filaments together.
Sustainability
As some of the biggest polluters, we believe it is essential that businesses do their part to build a sustainable future. At Ekster, we opt to help set the standards for environmentally-friendly business practices, pushing the industry forward as a whole.
Solar Panels
It’s a little known secret that we accidentally invented the most powerful solar panels… ever. When we were creating our wallet trackers, we needed something that was really small, super powerful and easy to charge. We ended up inventing the first solar panel that functions perfectly in low, overcast and even artificial light. For 3 hours charging time, you get 2 months of battery. Our solar panel technology is now being put to use all around the globe, helping DHL with parcel tracking, locating lost wallets, and even keeping track of rhinos on a protected reservation!
B-Corp
Economic growth means nothing without improvements in the welfare of society and the environment. As a certified B Corporation, we volunteer to be graded by the nonprofit B Lab to ensure we are meeting the highest standards of social and environmental performance, public transparency and legal accountability.
