X Bionic based in Zurich, Switzerland stands for Innovation and excellence in sports and outdoor clothing. The brand is known for high-quality products and technical sophistication. With over 800 patents, X-Bionic has secured a firm place in the world of sportswear. In particular, working with world-class athletes like Marco Odermatt or Sebastian Steudtner and the development of new products such as the revolutionary trail running shoe demonstrate the brand’s claim to always be at the forefront of technology and performance.
Maximilian LenkCEO of X-Bionic, explains in an interview how the company pursues its mission to support athletes in realizing their sporting dreams. By using the most modern materials and technologies as well as close cooperation with top athletes, X-Bionic ensures that its products meet the highest standards. Lenk also provides insight into the challenges and trends of the sportswear industry and how X-Bionic is responding to them to continue to play a leading role in the future.
The X-Bionic brand identity
FIT FOR FUN: Maximilian Lenk, X-Bionic produces high-quality sports and outdoor products – especially clothing and socks. What makes the brand unique compared to other providers? What is your mission?
MAXIMILIAN LENK: We are a brand for enthusiasts, that is our absolute goal. We generally say “We are Champion’s Choice” both internally and externally. We want to deliver the best product that you as an ambitious athlete can wear on your skin. The brand’s heritage is thermoregulation, sweat management, compression – we have been doing this for over 25 years and have always had innovation at the forefront in this area, always thinking one step further and pushing innovation. This is where the brand’s identity came from.
We have developed over 800 patents in this area, making us actually the brand with the second most patents in the area of thermoregulation behind Nike. Our mission is “We want to energize the boldest dreams” – it’s about the biggest dreams in sports and being the first choice for enthusiasts who want to live their dreams and turn them into reality.
Close collaboration with world-class athletes

Marco Odermatt (left) and Maximilian Lenk (© Tristan Paviot)
Maximilian Lenk and Marco Odermatt
Maximilian Lenk and Marco Odermatt
FIT FOR FUN: In order to achieve these goals, you also rely on collaboration with many top athletes…
MAXIMILIAN LENK: It is extremely important for us to work with absolute world-class athletes. Our most famous discipline is skiing; We are a proud partner and supplier of Swiss-Ski, the most successful ski nation. Marco Odermatt, the absolute fastest skier in years, has been equipped by us since he was a child and has competed and won all of his races in X-Bionic. We also equip the rest of the Swiss-Ski team.
But it’s not just about skiing. In Germany we are also active in the luge sector: the Friedrich bobsleigh team, the most successful lugers and multiple Olympic champions, also rely on X-Bionic. Felix Baumgartner jumped from space with X-Bionic, Chrigel Maurer, one of the best paragliders in the world, uses our products, and triathletes, runners and cyclists also rely on our thermoregulation to get the last 3 percent out of sport. Our target group are top athletes and enthusiasts – “people with the willingness to sweat”.
One example is Tim, an ambitious recreational athlete from Switzerland. He wanted to set a new record in the Via Glaralpina, a 240-kilometer trail run with 20,000 meters of elevation gain. With X-Bionic he managed to stay under 80 hours, and here too we appeal to a huge community.
Own undersuit for big wave surfer Sebastian Streudtner
FIT FOR FUN: Who else do you have on board?
MAXIMILIAN LENK: Another exciting project was the collaboration with Sebastian Steudtner, world record holder in big wave surfing. He surfs waves of 30 meters and more in Nazaré (Portugal). With X-Bionic under his wetsuit he can reduce the thickness of the wetsuit and gain more freedom of movement and additional compression. We developed a special suit for him with sensors from Siemens to measure the forces acting on him. Such projects motivate us to help athletes and dreamers achieve their goals and be the right companions for their adventures.
FIT FOR FUN: Let’s go back to ski superstar Marco Odermatt. You probably couldn’t ask for a better representative. He was your brand ambassador and now takes on an even more active role. How can I imagine this endorsement? What do you do for the athletes, what comes back from them?
MAXIMILIAN LENK: So the story went like this: Marco has really known us since he was little. Since then he has always been with X-Bionic and has always said that he stands behind this product 100 percent. This is absolutely great. We took over the brand at the end of 2021 with new investors – from founder Bodo Lambertz, who founded the company over 25 years ago and then sold it.
The new investors are private investors from Switzerland, and that’s how we got to know Marco. He got to know us, and then from the very beginning it was pretty much about where we wanted to go with the brand. What is our ambition for the company, for the brand? How do we want to position ourselves? How do we want to develop the brand further? And also, where does Marco want to go as an athlete, in his sporting career and afterwards?
Then we noticed that there was a lot of overlap. That was a really exciting discussion because we describe ourselves internally as a re-start-up.
Marco Odermatt – brand ambassador and strategic partner
FIT FOR FUN: What exactly does the collaboration with Marco Odermatt look like?
MAXIMILIAN LENK: Our brand has been established for over 20 years and yet it was clear to us when we took over that we really wanted to remake and re-establish it. In this respect, we treat the brand like a start-up. With Marco [Odermatt] We discovered that although he is already far into his career, he is also just beginning – he has his whole life ahead of him, both in his sporting career and in his time afterwards. We said it fits like a glove. We want to connect even more closely than is the case in a normal sponsorship setup and develop the brand together.
At the moment his full focus is on his sport, especially in the winter season when there is hardly any time for other activities. In these eight to ten months it is completely planned. However, in the summer there is a period before he starts training again where we talk strategically and discuss collections we are doing together. We already have pieces in the collection that he designed – he chose colors and helped design the branding. We now want to strengthen this even further.
In the first step, he represents the brand to the outside world. In the second step, he will drive more and more products in terms of design and product requirements. In the future, when his sporting career retires, he will also take on a strategic role, use his network to represent the brand externally and work with us on business development.
Nuria Picas and the “TerraSkin” trail running shoe
FIT FOR FUN: You have more athletes, a very interesting one is the Spanish ultrarunner Nuria Picas. She always plans extreme competitions. How do you and your products support athletes like her in such extreme challenges?
MAXIMILIAN LENK: Nuria – she has been with us since the beginning of the year – fits in directly with the launch of our first shoe, the TerraSkin Footwear for trail running. We launched this in September. We then started talking to different athletes, including Marco [Odermatt]Sebastian [Streudtner] and Nuria [Picas]. The first step is always to ensure that we can provide the athletes with added value in their activities. Our shoe is a good example of this.
FIT FOR FUN: What makes the shoe special, what is so special?
MAXIMILIAN LENK: It really is something very special and new in trail running. We want to be revolutionary and have developed the concept “Cushioning with control”. Today all shoes are designed for cushioning: they are getting higher and softer. However, as soon as you go off-road with your shoes, you are actually too unstable and lose grip and control. I do a lot of trail running and mountain biking myself and told our shoe developer that I imagine a shoe that is like my mountain bike: It has a soft vertical suspension, but is still stable enough to make tight turns and jump over obstacles. I can feel the ground exactly because the bike is inherently stiff and I always have grip and control. We wanted to create these characteristics with the shoe.
The shoe is a game changer for trail running athletes because it provides more grip and control on downhill runs and therefore offers more safety. This means that recreational runners have more fun and top athletes like Nuria [Picas] can increase their speed in downhill, which can make a big difference.
A partnership with us is always based on the athlete being enthusiastic about the product. We don’t offer big marketing budgets, we mainly offer product support. At Nuria, we support her with project support, photographers and videographers for any special projects or adventures she has in mind.
We also sponsored Savas Coban with the shoe, who has already been seen on Netflix. He carried out a new project with our shoe and ran across Mongolia – almost 700 kilometers through hill and dale, uphill and downhill. He also confirmed that the shoe offers significantly more safety, control and performance, which is crucial for such adventures.
Click here to go to the X-Bionic web shop
Pricing and market positioning in the high-price segment
FIT FOR FUN: This all sounds very high-end products. But where is the selling price that I have to put on the table at the end?
MAXIMILIAN LENK: We have three different price categories for our shoes. We launched the top model Terraskin X00/C as a limited edition in September, and it is developed as a system that fits together with a sock and shoe. The top shoe costs 300 euros and is a carbon shoe with a sock. Then there is the same shoe without carbon for 250 euros, and finally we offer an entry-level version for 220 euros.
FIT FOR FUN: This puts you in the high price segment. A running shirt costs between 100 and 150 euros. That’s a lot for the average runner, but when it comes to shoes it’s not that far away. I also run as a hobby runner in Brooks shoes for 170 euros. Stepping into your segment is no longer so difficult if I am convinced of the product. How do you position yourself when it comes to pricing?
MAXIMILIAN LENK: For us, from a business perspective, the shoe is an extremely important strategic pillar for the company. That’s why it’s the way you say it or have observed it. We want to stay true to our positioning with the shoe from the start: high quality, premium, innovative in the top segment of the market. But we also want to be relevant to the market.
We don’t want to create a product that ends up just sitting in the shop window and not accessible to anyone. This is the bridge we always have to find. You’re right, we’re at the upper end of the volume segment, and we’ll be making additional product expansions step by step, every season, in order to grow more and more into the volume segment. This is heading towards price points like 170 euros or 180 euros, and at some point we may also aim for lower price segments.
FIT FOR FUN: How far down would you go?
MAXIMILIAN LENK: We certainly won’t be offering a shoe for 100 or 120 euros in the next two to three years, that’s not our target group. But we want to move in the range of 150 to 160 euros and up.
FIT FOR FUN: Why are the dimensions of clothing different? You are further away from the middle class.
MAXIMILIAN LENK: Yes, it’s a bigger leap in the first step compared to many others who are in the base layer area. What should not be underestimated when it comes to clothing is our completely different technology and functionality. Our products are extremely durable.
We did a consumer survey about our layer, which Marco Odermatt also uses. On average, our customers wear this product for eight years, and in the survey this went up to twelve and 13 years. That’s where the price comes from. We use the highest quality yarns and knitting technology, which results in this longevity and performance. In this respect, we offer the consumer a very good price-performance ratio. You have to test and feel the product to know the difference and durability.
Maximilian Lenk’s personal passion
FIT FOR FUN: You are an extreme athlete yourself and test the X-Bionic products personally. How does your experience flow into product development? How can I imagine this in practice?
MAXIMILIAN LENK: I am a child of sports. What always drove me was sport. I wrestled at a professional level at a young age – until I was 15 years old. Then I did a hardcut and got fully into mountain sports. Even as a child, I skied a lot and did cross country, which was very possible back home. Then there was a lot of mountain biking. At some point I ended up in the outdoor industry and in Switzerland through trail running and climbing. I always wanted to live in the mountains – it’s my playground, I feel at home there in both summer and winter.
Ultimately, my career led me to being able to combine my passion for sports with my fascination for innovative, high-quality products. I already have that at Mammut [Anm. der Red.: Schweizer Hersteller von Bekleidung und Ausrüstung für Berg-, Kletter-, Outdoor- und Schneesport sowie Trailrunning] where I was responsible for all products as Chief Product Officer for a long time. I always had the greatest joy in business and in my work when I was involved in products and then met people with them in the mountains who had a good time and were safer, faster and more comfortable. That’s what drives me, and that also applies to X-Bionic.
FIT FOR FUN: Why was it so important for you to personally test the shoe in detail?
MAXIMILIAN LENK: For me, the most important thing is that I can stand behind our products. This is where testing comes from. The shoe was a huge strategic leap for us. I’ll say it openly: Nobody is waiting for the next footwear brand, there are many great brands and products. We consciously said that we would only make a shoe if we had a great idea that made a difference. And the idea was that we develop a shoe that offers more control. This was my idea, inspired by my trail running experience. I said: We need a shoe that offers more control because everyone talks about cushioning, but that doesn’t make sense for trail running. We have to combine control with cushioning.
Once the idea was clear and the path was clear, it was extremely important for me to test the concept. The project was a collaboration between me and our shoe developer in Italy, a very experienced shoemaker. I tested the shoe every weekend, traveled a lot in Valais, sent WhatsApp messages and called him: “The grip is great now, but still too hard” or “still too heavy”. So we did iteration after iteration until we could both say: This is what it should look like.
In the first phase it was really just him and me. Then more people joined, especially in the second phase when the product was more mature. We involved many athletes who were of course able to give different feedback. They put a lot more mileage into a product. Once we knew the concept worked, we got the athletes involved. A total of over 20,000 kilometers went into the shoe during its development. The athlete pool gave us a lot of feedback, which was then incorporated into the final product.
Multisport as an emerging trend
FIT FOR FUN: Back to extreme sports. You practice these sports yourself, develop and market products. How do you see the future of extreme sports? What new trends are you seeing? Do you also want to explore new sports?
MAXIMILIAN LENK: Yes, that’s a really exciting question and particularly interesting to me because I just had a conversation today with someone from another industry who asked me the same question. A big trend that I see and that is extremely important for us is the increasing importance of sport. The topics of health, longevity, fitness and self-esteem are becoming increasingly important and remain relevant. This is the perfect environment for us and will not disappear with technology. Ideally, advances in technology will actually give people more time to exercise because certain jobs are automated.
In this context I see two main trends. Firstly, people are becoming much more multi-sporting. Previously, at Mammut, we saw that people were strongly stuck in one category, be it cycling, climbing or skiing. Today things are different. Our community is more diverse: Some fly to Mallorca on their racing bike in February, come back to Switzerland and go on ski tours until the end of May, before they do trail running and go skiing on the glaciers again in October. This multi-sport behavior continues throughout the year.
Fitness is the basis for many people during this sports career. Regardless of the sport, many make sure to hit the gym or do basic endurance training during the week to be ready for their activities. We see a strong trend towards combined activities. Trail running and running are important disciplines for us, especially in summer, and we see a lot of overlap. People who buy expensive bikes also do ambitious trail running.
Our answer to this is that we do not want to dominate a single activity. We don’t just want to “own” trail running or cycling. Our goal is to deliver the best product for ambitious, strenuous sports. We call this your “Orange Zone”, “Power Zone” or “Sweat Zone”. We want to be the partner in this zone. Our products work equally well in the gym, outdoors when cycling, and when running. We want to be present wherever endurance and pushing boundaries are concerned and position and live the brand accordingly.
The future of extreme sports and new challenges
FIT FOR FUN: It sounds like you are very well positioned, but there are certainly challenges where you want to go. What are the biggest hurdles for your industry in the next few years, what do you have to prepare for?
MAXIMILIAN LENK: Yes, I think one challenge in the industry is actually that it’s too driven by fashion. That’s part of the reason I went to X-Bionic, because I see a huge advantage there. Personally, I think that the industry in which I have worked for a long time in many different positions has at some point become too fashion-driven. And I don’t mean that you shouldn’t get fashion inspiration when it comes to design or collaborations. That’s all great. But by “driven” I mean it became too seasonal. At some point it was just a matter of delivering a new color per season and selling it as an innovation. Everyone uses the same materials, the big brands all use Gore-Tex, Pertex and down that they buy in. In my opinion there is too little innovation there.
You can also tell that the logos of many big brands could be taken away and you would hardly be able to tell which brand is behind them – they are almost interchangeable. For me personally and for us at X-Bionic, we have a different standard. That’s also what I meant before about the shoe: I want to be able to take the logo away from the shoe and still have people recognize the shoe by its design and, above all, by its feel. They should be able to say, “This is my shoe because it is so good and makes such a difference that I wouldn’t want to run in any other shoe.”
For us as an industry, this means that we need longer development cycles, put more focus and more budget on innovation and then keep the products on the market longer. The shoe is the foundation, and it’s here to stay for years to come – it won’t be replaced by something else next year just because it’s the next marketing buzzword.
I think our industry has a weakness here and has strayed too far from the core of providing the best product for natural athletes and athletes in general. Instead, the rhythms became too fast and too fashion-driven, too color-heavy and not innovative enough. And we clearly want to make a difference. This also drives us personally.
FIT FOR FUN: Maximilian Lenk, thank you very much for the conversation and the deep insight into your business.
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