Aberdeenshire father-of-three launches hi-tech baby carrier ‘precision-engineered’ for dads

A Scots entrepreneur who built a fitness brand into a multi-million-pound business has secured six-figure backing for a new baby carrier engineered for dads and is now poised to launch his first product.

Ben Leonard, with his daughter in the first Tuko carrier | Contributed

Ben Leonard, from Stonehaven, Aberdeenshire, has spent six years developing Tuko - billed as the first carrier “precision-engineered” for fathers - after becoming frustrated with conventional designs following the birth of his first child.

Dad-of-three Leonard, who sold his strength and conditioning brand Beast Gear in 2019, has invested a six-figure sum developing the product, working through more than ten iterations alongside outdoor equipment designers, baby-carrying specialists and researchers.

The innovative concept has also attracted external backing after securing nearly £400,000 from private investors, including several high-profile figures in the renewable energy sector, and a further £70,000 through the Scottish Edge competition.

The idea began to take shape after Leonard travelled around Italy with his wife Katie, a nurse and health visitor, and their five-month-old daughter more than six years ago. He struggled with their carrier, experiencing discomfort and pain, and was unable to find a more suitable product on the market.

“I loved carrying my daughter, but the carrier just wasn’t right for me,” he said. “It was uncomfortable, the fit was wrong and every time I used the one my wife preferred I would change all the straps and hand it back completely readjusted.

“I couldn’t believe there wasn’t anything that felt as though it had been designed for dads from the outset.

“You can walk into an outdoor shop and find a properly engineered backpack for carrying a toddler, but for younger babies the products have traditionally been designed with mums in mind and then marketed to dads too. I couldn’t stop thinking about why nobody had properly solved this.”

Leonard had sold Beast Gear only months after becoming a father. The company, which he started as a hobby while working as an ecologist in the oil and gas industry, had grown to revenues of more than £4 million by the time he exited. However, he soon realised the skills he had developed would not necessarily translate into a typical career elsewhere.

He added: “Selling Beast Gear was absolutely the right decision for my family, but I quickly realised ‘I’m an entrepreneur, I’m probably unemployable now’. Becoming a dad also meant I was experiencing all these products as a customer for the first time. The baby carrier was one where I just thought there had to be a better way.”

Tuko has been developed around differences in the male torso, shoulders and pelvis. Designed to carry children aged four months to 36 months, it includes a patent-pending hip belt engineered to transfer weight through the pelvis, shoulder straps tailored for the male frame, one-handed magnetic buckles and accessible storage pockets. Other features include breathable air vents and a sunshade.

Leonard said: “Men and women are built differently, but traditionally the answer to making a baby carrier appeal to dads has often been little more than making it black. We wanted to start again and ask what it would look and feel like if you engineered the product around a dad from day one.

“This isn’t about saying dads should carry instead of mums - quite the opposite,” he added. “By making it easier and more comfortable for dads to get involved early, we can help them literally and figuratively take more of the load.

“When children are tiny, dads can sometimes feel a bit useless and mum can quickly become the default parent. If dad gets into the habit of carrying the baby, soothing them and spending that one-to-one time together early on, you’re building that relationship too.”

Leonard’s family has grown from one child to three during the development of the carrier, with all three carried in different prototypes. Through ten iterations, the new venture has worked with specialist baby-carrying consultants and experts including perinatal health researcher Dr Emily Little, whose research has examined infant-caregiver interaction and baby carrying.

Tuko recently received £70,000 through Scottish Edge following an investment round of nearly £400,000. It is initially launching in the UK, targeting direct online sales before expanding into independent baby and outdoor retailers, larger stores and marketplaces such as Amazon.

The start-up is preparing a Kickstarter campaign ahead of the first carriers being shipped to customers in January - with at least one celebrity said to be on Leonard’s gifting list.

He added: “This has taken far longer than I expected, but you cannot cut corners with a product like this. We’ve tested, redesigned and tested again, working with experts on ergonomics, fit, positioning and safety.

“Beast Gear was a great success, but very different. With Tuko, we’ve engineered something from scratch and the investors challenged every assumption before backing us. It’s harder and more expensive, but you end up with something genuinely different.

“You can’t out-market a bad product, and after six years we finally have the product we set out to make.”

In 2023, Leonard was invited to be the warm-up speaker when Dragons’ Den star Steven Bartlett appeared before around 1,500 people at Aberdeen Music Hall.

“I got 15 minutes before Steven came on, which was pretty daunting, but an amazing experience,” added Leonard. “I gave him a pair of custom boxing gloves afterwards and a copy of my book. The funny part was that he asked me to sign the book for him.”