The history of ATK

The scene is like something out of a spy story, where the main characters meet at a roadside cafe, away from any listening devices or potential eavesdroppers. It’s 2007 and Davide, with his father Giovanni and mother Guerrina, is going on a ski holiday to Pila in northwest Italy. Waiting for them at the cafe is Denis Brunod, who can’t wait to get his hands on the prototype of a super-lightweight heel piece. “It was a hectic time, new developments were coming thick and fast, like in Formula One: every three months we’d shave ten grams off the weight,” remembers Davide. ATK’s story begins with G.I.MEC, otherwise known as Giovanni Indulti Meccanica. The company specialized in manufacturing precision mechanical components for the ceramics, weighing, packaging and automotive industries. Then, one day, an acquaintance showed Giovanni a touring binding from the early 2000s, asking if he was able to improve it. This was in 2006 and from then on things really started to heat up. The first heel-piece prototype soon followed, with three pins instead of the now standard U-spring; then came the Race Pro, the Race EX8—which shifted a few hundred units—and the Race NX, part of the collection from 2008 to 2012. The U-spring changed from steel to titanium. The first patent was for an auto-locking toe lever. But what exactly does ATK mean? “We chose the name partly because it’s similar to the Italian word for binding, attacco, and as it’s easy to pronounce around the world” says Giovanni. Technology played a crucial role in the meteoric rise from small-scale workshop to manufacturer of a few million milled pieces per year and a turnover of over 20 million euros in 2022.