Vuori was an early pioneer in designing yoga clothing for men, expanding "athleisure" to include a broader customer base. Encinitas-based clothing brand Vuori, which makes yoga and other athletic apparel, received 400 million dolars from investors to expand its retail business in the US last year, with the end goal of opening 100 new stores in the next five years. The company was founded in 2015 and currently has around ten outlets on the West Coast. Vuori is a Finnish word meaning mountain, a brand that founders Miller and Kudla found appropriate for the sensation of reaching the top of a mountain. After receiving a generous investment in 2021, it will have the means to execute a plan that includes more than one hundred openings over the next five years. It also plans to accelerate its international expansion plan in Europe and Asia-Pacific, as its operations are currently focused on the United States.
The brand is renowned in particular for its unmatched soft material. The Vuori Performance Joggers are made from a lightweight knitted fabric that wicks away moisture. They dry very quickly and the fabric is very soft, which are ideal characteristics for activewear. Kudla says that in addition to the quality and designs of its products, which are manufactured in Colombia and China, among other foreign countries, Vuori's success is due to its talented team and their long collective experience in their respective fields and in the world of apparel. Sustainably Made Vuori is carbon neutral. Vuori is also OEKO TEX® Standard 100 certified. This means that Vuori does not use hazardous chemicals in its production process and manages its wastewater in an environmentally friendly way.
Vuori Receives an Investment of $400 Million from SoftBank The sportswear brand closed a $400 million financing round, which has been fully funded by Softbank Vision Fund 2. The deal values the Southern California company at $4 billion, the fund said in a statement, implying that its stake will be 10%. In its favour, the company has been profitable since 2017 thanks to its commitment to its online platform. The brand currently has an extensive network of physical shops in the Californian towns of Encinitas, Del Mar, Malibu, Manhattan Beach, Newport Beach, San Francisco, San Jose and Venice Beach, the New York City of Bridgehampton and the city of Boulder, in the state of Colorado. These points of sale are in addition to the wide visibility of its collections that the company achieves for itself, thanks to its presence in most of the shopping centres of the American Nordstrom Group, as well as Rei, an American multi-brand shop chain specialising in sports and outdoor sports articles and garments. These are structures that the sports start-up will now seek to expand, thanks to the more than significant investment made by SoftBank. As a result of SoftBank's fund, it’s become the second to back Vuori's business, following the investments made in 2019 by Norwest Venture Partners.