ByAthletes — Issue No. 3

Cover Story

Athlete Spotlight

Naomi Osaka Built a Skincare Brand Athletes Actually Need

Kinlò just closed an $18M Series A — and Osaka's bet on melanin-rich skin is turning into one of the sharpest founder plays in athlete CPG.

By Marcus Webb · Staff Writer

Naomi Osaka is a four-time Grand Slam champion. She's also a founder. In 2021 she launched Kinlò, a sunscreen and skincare line built specifically for people with melanin-rich skin — a category that major beauty brands had systematically ignored. The product line started with SPF essentials and has since expanded into moisturizers, lip balms, and body care.

Kinlò just closed an $18M Series A led by Fearless Fund, with participation from CAVU Consumer Partners and a handful of athlete angel investors. The brand has moved 600,000+ units to date and is now stocked in Target, Ulta Beauty, and Amazon — a retail trifecta that most indie beauty brands spend a decade chasing.

Next up: a hair care line launching in Q3 and an ambassador program specifically targeting college athletes in Olympic sports. Osaka is targeting $30M in revenue by end of 2026.

"I didn't want to be the face of someone else's sunscreen. I wanted to solve a real problem for people who look like me — and own the upside."

— Naomi Osaka, Founder, Kinlò

$18M

Series A closed — April 2026

TennisBeauty & SkincareCPGFearless Fund600K+ Units Sold

Football

Patrick Mahomes' Restaurant Group Expands to 12 Locations

The Chiefs QB's casual dining brand, 1587 Prime, has signed leases in four new cities following record same-store sales in 2025. Mahomes holds equity across all locations — no licensing fee model.

Basketball

Jaylen Brown Launches Mental Performance App for High Schoolers

Brown's app, Clearview, hit 200,000 downloads in its first 90 days — targeting student athletes with guided mindset and recovery protocols. A $6M seed round closed last month.

Opinion

Being an Ambassador Is a Job. Being a Founder Is a Career.

Every year athletes leave billions on the table by choosing spokesperson deals over equity stakes. The athletes who will be wealthy at 60 are the ones building right now — not the ones collecting flat fees.

Rugby

Richie McCaw's Leadership Consultancy Crosses $10M Revenue

The All Blacks legend turned corporate performance consultant is running leadership programs for Fortune 500 executives — and the business is scaling faster than any sports deal he ever signed.

News Roundup

01 Golf

Rory McIlroy Takes Stake in Golf Analytics Firm

McIlroy invested an undisclosed sum in SwingIQ, a machine-learning platform that provides real-time biomechanical feedback to tour players and coaches. The company's B2B product is now deployed at 200 training facilities across North America and Europe, with a consumer app launching in Q4.

02 Soccer

Megan Rapinoe's Re-Inc Brand Expands to 80 New Retail Doors

Rapinoe's gender-fluid apparel brand Re-Inc has added 80 new retail doors in 2026, including a flagship deal with Nordstrom. The brand's community-first model drives repeat purchase rates nearly double the industry average, according to company disclosures.

03 Basketball

Candace Parker Co-Leads $25M Raise for Women's Sports Media Platform

Parker co-led a Series B for Togethxr, the media company she co-founded with Alex Morgan, Chloe Kim, and Sue Bird. The platform is expanding into live event ticketing and merchandise — two categories where women's sports demand has consistently outpaced supply.

04 Track & Field

Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone Takes Equity in Recovery Startup

The 400m hurdles world record holder has negotiated a 2% equity stake in RecovR, a wearable-based recovery monitoring platform. The deal includes a standard ambassador component, but McLaughlin-Levrone insisted the equity grant was non-negotiable — and got it.

Startup Tips

The athlete's
startup playbook

Know the difference between revenue and income

Revenue is what your business makes. Income is what you keep. Build systems that maximize the gap between the two before you scale.

Your athlete status is a distribution moat

No startup founder gets the access and attention you do at launch. Use your visibility as a customer acquisition asset — but build the product to retain them.

Retail is a trap without margin control

Getting into Target feels like winning. But if your margins aren't protected, volume kills you. Know your cost of goods before you negotiate shelf space.

Hire operators, not cheerleaders

Your first hires should have operational track records — not just excitement about working with you. Enthusiasm runs out. Systems scale.

Separate playing income from business capital

Never fund your company from your playing salary without a formal structure. Set up a holding company and treat every dollar like an investor would.

Build the community before you build the product

If you have an audience, survey them before you spend a dollar on development. The product they'll pay for is rarely the product you'd build in isolation.

Think in decades, not deal cycles

A 10-year brand is worth exponentially more than a 10-year contract. Start building the thing that compounds while your peers are still chasing endorsement checks.

By The Numbers

The athlete
startup economy

$3.4B

Total capital raised by athlete-founded companies in the last 12 months — a record high

68%

Of athlete-founded CPG brands that hit retail in 2025 are still operating and growing in 2026

$220K

Average first-year revenue of athlete-founded startups that complete a formal accelerator program

Fastest Growing Sectors

1. Beauty & Personal Care
2. Sports Performance Tech
3. Mental Health & Wellness
4. Food & Beverage
5. Media & Content

Investment Deals — Q1 2026

Giannis Antetokounmpo — BAGG Inc.

Lagos Basketball Academy Gets Seed Funding

$4M

Giannis committed $4M to a Lagos-based basketball development academy that scouts and trains athletes across sub-Saharan Africa. The investment is part of a broader initiative to build talent pipeline infrastructure in regions chronically underserved by traditional scouting networks.

Basketball · Seed Round

Serena Williams — Serena Ventures

AI Legal Platform Built for Professional Athletes

$7M

Serena Ventures led a seed round for Playbook Legal, a platform helping professional athletes review contracts, negotiate endorsement deals, and understand IP ownership without six-figure legal fees. The platform has already onboarded 400 active professional athletes across six sports.

Tennis · Seed Round

Shaquille O'Neal

Franchise Restaurant Digital Ordering Platform

$22M

O'Neal participated in a Series B for OLIO Tech, a white-label digital ordering and loyalty platform built for franchise restaurant groups. Shaq has operated in the QSR space for over a decade and the investment deepens his vertical integration in food service operations.

Basketball · Series B

Athletesbuildingempires.