The Brighton Effect: Update from Tom Meades of Gomi

We caught up with Tom to find out what he’s been doing since his article in the Brighton Effect Magazine in 2019. You can read the original article here.

How have you developed Gomi since you featured in our Brighton Effect Magazine?

Since we featured in the Brighton Effect magazine we launched a Portable Charger product on Kickstarter in 2020, and launched right at the beginning of the first lockdown. We decided not to let is hold us back, and went ahead with the campaign. We were lucky enough to be featured in a lot of media and were overfunded in just 3 hours and went onto raise over £30,000 through Kickstarter and Indiegogo. We powered the power banks using waste e-bike batteries imported from Netherlands, meaning the power banks were the first consumer tech product globally to be fully made from (and 100% powered by) waste!

We grew our team, and now have a few more makers to help create our products and collaborations.

Which new products have you released and do you have a best seller?

At the beginning of 2021 we launched our new Wireless Mag Charger product, a wireless fast charger compatible with all MagSafe iPhones and accessories. We wanted to focus on releasing an affordable product that people could enjoy in the new WFH lifestyle, that was also high-spec – charging devices 3x faster than using a regular lead.

This week we finally launched our brand new Gomi Portable Speakers, a collaboration between ourselves and global micro-mobility leader Lime. I reached out to Lime in 2020 with a vision for repurposing local e-bike battery cells, taken from damaged London bikes. They were keen to start the partnership, and so the speakers are fully powered by repurposed Lime e-bike batteries and of course made from 100% recycled plastic bags We have a challenge of repurposing 50,000 battery cells into our new range of Portable Speakers, and are using the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter to take on pre-orders for the new product. Since launching, we’ve been featured in The Telegraph, Mashable, and The Verge. After one week, we’ve already raised over £30,000 and will be continuing to raise funds until April 1st! We’re hoping to use the funds to industrialize our plastic process, and allow us to work with turning much more waste materials into products more efficiently – meaning we’ll be able to make products more accessible and affordable to more people.

How has your business and the production of your products been affected by Covid-19?

Before the pandemic we were focussing on a lot of collaboration projects, but since the first lockdown most of the projects we were working on for businesses have been postponed so we really concentrated all our efforts into designing the new products. These collaborations have started to pick up again, and recently we created the BIFA Film Award Trophies from our marbled plastic material – sending out winning trophies to actors such as Anthony Hopkins (Hannibal Lecter!).

What is next for you and Gomi?

This year we’re really focused on scaling up our plastics processing methods, we’re hoping to soon be able to turn 500kg of plastic waste per day into products. We’re also going to be working on new tech products, more collaborations, and continuing to work with Lime in repurposing their e-bike batteries into a new range of Gomi products.