Phoenix Instinct

Changing the lives of wheelchair users with innovative designs

Phoenix Instinct launched in 2015 and, after playing around with a few ideas – even launching and leaving another wheelchair business – finally settled on a smart, lightweight wheelchair that has an intelligent centre of gravity and a built-in power assist unit.

After entering the Toyota Mobility Unlimited Challenge in 2018, Phoenix Instinct was selected as the winner at the end of 2020, which helped it progress on its journey of bringing their wheelchair to market.

Founder Andrew Slorance has been a wheelchair user since the age of 14, following a spinal injury. By the time he was 18, Andrew had already come up with the idea of using carbon fibre to advance wheelchair design.

The team hope that continued innovation of smaller businesses will spark action of larger corporations, changing the lives for all wheelchair users:

“Small businesses need to be innovative to be competitive and this innovation should find its way into the mainstream of the industry and therefore reach more end users,” says Andrew.

The Innovate UK Inclusive Innovation Award funding will also allow Phoenix Instinct to continue its innovation of wheelchairs, with the next step being to improve the handrim (what users hold when pushing the chair).