We recognize it can suck to order custom uniforms, apparel, and equipment for sports programs. This is because the traditional process is plagued with errors, time consuming inefficiencies, and an average of 8 people in the value chain!

The traditional 2-4 week pop up team stores restrict the market with high minimum order quantities on items, limited selections, and extended lead times that can drag out 10-12 weeks. 

Picture this: you are a Director for your local sports program, and you have to spend over 100 hours per season to deliver apparel, from start to finish. First, the Director works with every family during the preseason to collect checks, sizes, and jersey numbers. Next, that Director places the orders and eventually receives a late delivery of a giant, unorganized box of bulk apparel. Then that Director sorts through the box, bags it up for transport and hands everything out one-by-one during player practice — only to find out there are errors in sizing, numbers are wrong, and the name of the team’s best player is misspelled. The worst part? Replacement orders take 8-12 weeks and don’t arrive until the season is over.

Now picture this: you are a parent, and your child is ecstatic for their first season on the field. You’ve worked out jersey size details with the Director, paid your registration fees, picked out supporting team t-shirts for the family, and channeled your child’s energy into more laps around the field. Your first game day is just a few days away, and you are expecting their first jersey to arrive at practice. The Director hands you a bag, you plan the big reveal at home — only to find out that their last name is misspelled on their jersey. They decide to try it on anyway, but you realize it’s a size small when you ordered a medium. Disappointed, you scramble to fix the situation with your Program Director, and you’re told that a new jersey will arrive in 10-12 weeks. Your child wears the team’s oversized temporary jersey, you enjoy the first game, and you hope that the new jersey arrives before the last game of the season. Plus...remember the game day t-shirts you ordered for the family? They never went to production, because they didn’t meet the store’s minimum order threshold. Maybe next year.

We believe the traditional bulk order process has been a continuous headache across sports program management for far too long.

So we solved it! 

Signature Athletics takes the entire process off the program director’s plate. We built a software and supply chain solution streamlining the entire process and cutting five of the eight people from the value chain.

 Our proven business model speeds up lead times from the traditional 3 months down to 15 days with a 10-day rush option (and we have a clear path to our goal of 2 day production.) We also lower the traditional error rate from a typical 10% to 3% or less (with a goal and clear path to get to 0%.)

Sports programs sign up for 3-Year Exclusive Merchandising Agreements with Signature Athletics. As a part of the agreement, we set the program up with a 24/7/365 Team Store, which includes 40+ custom items for players, coaches and fans. Everything delivered Direct-to-Player includes dye sublimated, fully custom uniform kits — from embroidered hats and bags to Direct-to-Garment graphic t-shirts and fully sublimated performance athletic apparel.

Over the last five years, Signature has gained strong traction in the market including:

Beat Projections Twice: Signature successfully raised an initial seed round in Q4 2020. We beat the expectations set with early investors and doubled the planned number of programs under contract at the end of Q1 2021. We then raised projections again in August 2021 and beat projections with the signing of program number 100. This incredible product market fit is fueled by:

• Our inside sales teams consultative approach to the market
• Sport-agnostic brand building, with organic and paid lead-generating funnels
• Market and product expansion, with new innovations!

New Patent Offerings & IP: Signature has been granted three patents for our innovative equipment design, one patent pending in Software, as well as multiple trademarks.

New Product Lines: Signature is in the market with four successful product lines, amounting to over $10M in lifetime sales. Top performing equipment products include:

• The #1 Lacrosse ball, which redefined the category
• Our patented Pro S1 ball, the official ball of professional Lacrosse leagues for its durability and design
• Our patented, pro-strung line of Lacrosse sticks, which are ready-to-play unlike other typical sticks
• Our goal kits with innovative quick-screw solutions that take 5 minutes to set up (compared to typical 2 hours)

Signature’s line of innovative equipment supports the brand’s premium line of athletic apparel and team uniforms. AthleTech, our patent-pending software platform, expedited apparel sales to a $1M run rate in its first 12 months in the market. AthleTech streamlines the entire dye, sublimate, cut, and sew process for personalized products, which enable us to offer on-demand access to 40+ custom apparel items on our Team Stores 24/7/365 with no Minimum Order Quantity. We plan to launch AthleTech 2.0 updates in 2022, which will enable us to produce more new, on-demand, fashion-forward product styles and designs.  

New Partners: Signature Athletics has been named the official, exclusive product partner with the top Pro Lacrosse leagues, including the largest pro league in Lacrosse, the National Lacrosse League, and the largest women’s pro league run by Athletes Unlimited. Signature Athletics has also partnered with over 100 youth sports programs around the country as their exclusive custom merchandise, apparel, and equipment supplier. 

Signature Athletics has proven its business model by signing up over 100 programs to 3-Year Agreements and achieving  over $10M in lifetime sales. Over the last 12 months, Signature has built scalable marketing funnels and sales processes, applicable to any sport. Over the last 3 months, we have increased our client acquisition pacing from 1 new program/week to an average of 5 new programs/week.

The best part? This is only the beginning. Next, Signature plans to expand into Field Hockey in 2022, Soccer in 2023, Basketball in 2023, Ice Hockey in 2024 and more sports beyond. Signature will drive business growth by leveraging its existing manufacturing operations and industry experts across apparel design, marketing, sales, and service, as well as the anticipated integration of two acquisitions in December 2021 and January 2022, which are anticipated to more than double Signature’s top-line revenue.

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How does Signature plan to use these funds? For expansion in three main categories: 

• AthleTech Platform Improvements: we plan to launch our 2.0 platform improvements, to benefit Signature, our clients, and our factory partners. This platform also has the white-label capability to be applied in the Print on Demand market. 

• Product & Market Expansion: our community is telling Signature to expand into new sports, and we see a blue ocean of opportunity! Through Statista and SFIA, we’ve researched our market penetration opportunity. We believe that of the 31M registered players across Lacrosse, Field Hockey, Soccer, Basketball and Ice Hockey, Signature can penetrate up to 5% of each sports market over the next several years. Signature plans to capture its projected revenue with market expansion, greater product selection, and our premium line of Signature Athletic Apparel.  

• Hiring & Acquisitions: With a full management team in place, it's time to put fuel on the fire. Signature plans to hire more sales and marketing support, and we also anticipate closing two new acquisitions, with sellers already under LOIs. We believe acquisitions will accelerate our growth, by doubling our business, expanding our product lines, and growing our team! We find that the market is fragmented with mom and pop operations, providing a great opportunity for continued consolidation.