Cybex
Cybex is a German baby gear company that makes strollers and car seats. It is owned by Chinese baby gear conglomerate Goodbaby, which also owns the stroller brand Evenflo as well as manufacturing strollers for other brands.
Cybex was founded in 2005 by Martin Pos. Pos got his start in the baby gear business as the Director of Global Sales and Marketing for the German car seat maker Concord in 1993, later becoming the brand's CEO in 2000. When Concord became part of the Spanish baby gear group JANÉ, Pos left to start his own company.
In an interview about Cybex's foudning, Pos said the inspiration was his two young children. Why start a stroller company?
"Through my own painful experiences. The things we needed for our kids had the chic of a lifting platform. Everything was too heavy and too ugly. That's exactly what we wanted to change. Design and technology in one—that was new in the baby industry."[1]
Cybex has the misfortune of launching in the US in 2009, amid the economic downturn that sent sales of high-end strollers plummeting. The company's efforts at high style fell flat—the first Cybex strollers featured white frames and wheels, which while unique, meant they were soon to be become scuffed and dirty. Subsequent Cybex models had more traditional frames (silver), yet high prices still turned off parents.
The company had more success in the car seat market, especially with its Aton infant car seat.
In 2014, Cybex as bought by Goodbaby, with Martin Pos continuing his involvement with Cybex's design and manufacturing (Pos also now serves an executive director at Goodbaby).
Goodbaby itself started in Kunshan, China in 1989 as a manufacturer of baby strollers, at a time when many companies (like Evenflo) off-shored their production. According to Forbes, Goodbaby has a complex of 11 factories that churn out over 10,000 strollers day under 15 different brand names (Goodbaby sells both its own strollers under Evenflo and Cybex as well as contracting out manufacturing for other brands).[2]