Sportswear startup Riki Sport attracts 3 'sharks' to make deals

Ambition to dominate the sports fashion market

According to Mordor Intelligence research, the global sportswear market size is estimated to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 4.51% and will reach a size of nearly 340 billion USD by 2029.

In Vietnam, the number of people exercising regularly nationwide is 36.7%; the number of families exercising regularly is 27.7% of the total number of households. This data shows that the sportswear market in Vietnam still has a lot of growth potential, while opening up opportunities for Vietnamese brands to establish their position in the domestic market.

Ms. Vu Nhu Yen - CEO of Riki Sport commented: "Before 2019, the football equipment market had absolutely no concept of Vietnamese brands. However, today more than 95% of products seen on the field are Vietnamese brands."

Riki Sport is a sports fashion brand founded in 2014, specializing in manufacturing and distributing products according to the B2B model (business to business), currently having 6 distributors nationwide. Faced with the huge demand of the market, this startup went to Shark Tank to find investors to accompany it to take the Riki Sport brand further with the vision of becoming the leading sportswear supplier in Vietnam.

Riki Sport's revenue target for 2025 is 200 billion VND, 2026 is 300 billion VND, profit margin reaches over 17%. The "huge" financial figures are one of the attractive points for investors.

Startup 1.jpg — Ms. Vu Nhu Yen - CEO of Riki Sport appeared at Shark Tank Vietnam season 7 to attract investors.

Catching the e-commerce wave

To achieve the target of hundreds of billions in revenue in the next two years, Riki Sport's strategy is to sell directly to consumers, while maintaining the B2B model. Specifically, this startup wants to develop a D2C model to take advantage of the online shopping wave to quickly reach end users on a large scale. With retail prices ranging from 159 - 195 thousand VND/outfit, Riki Sport has the advantage to realize this expectation.

CEO Vu Nhu Yen said: “My short-term goal by the end of 2025 is to expand the product portfolio that the Vietnamese market is developing such as badminton, pickleball... At the same time, develop a separate product line to penetrate the retail market and thereby position the brand more on e-commerce. This spread will promote the development of the dealer channel in return. In the long term, the two channels will be developed in parallel.”

This direction of Riki Sport received the approval of Shark Binh - the technology "Shark" who owns platforms that provide comprehensive support for businesses to expand the D2C model.

Startup 2.jpg — The Investment Council is particularly interested in and highly appreciates Riki Sport's products.

Focus on developing sportswear

In order to attract customers, and thereby attract investors, the key is that Riki Sport must identify its competitive advantage.

CEO Vu Nhu Yen shared: “We only focus on sportswear, which in the Vietnamese market there are not many brands stronger than Riki Sport doing. In addition, Riki Sport focuses on product features to make it a competitive advantage.”

In fact, Riki Sport started with its main product being soccer uniforms, then gradually expanded its apparel portfolio to include other sports such as volleyball, basketball, etc. After more than 10 years, this startup has owned more than 100 collections of competition uniforms for both men and women with fashionable and beautiful designs.

In particular, Riki Sport always focuses on improving product features. Recently, Riki Sport has launched RPC fabric, improved from this startup's exclusive R-Tech technology. With 90% polyester and 10% spandex and a special knitted structure, RPC fabric has breathable holes for better heat dissipation, has superior elasticity and retains its shape for a long time.

With these features, Riki Sport products not only bring comfort to users even when exercising continuously in hot weather but also ensure long-term use even when using a washing machine.

With the competitive strengths of the brand and the great potential of the sportswear market, Riki Sport was offered investment by Shark Hung, Shark Binh, Shark Thai and finally closed a deal of 15 billion for 15% of shares with Shark Binh.