The chief designer has resigned, lululemon has cut prices sharply, and what style will the women's sports brand Maia Active take in the future.
January 29, 2024 is a new beginning for Maia Active, a domestic women's sports brand acquired by Anta.
This weekend, the brand's chief designer and founder, Ou Yirou, officially bid farewell to the team and left the company, which is celebrating its 9th anniversary.
A week ago, Maia Active launched its new Spring/Summer 2024 collection, a short-sleeved skinny short sleeve, a sweatshirt and two sweatpants in three colors. The collection is named after a collection that seems to represent the brand's official farewell to its founding designer.
When it was founded in Shanghai in 2016, Maia Active was positioned as a designer sportswear brand for Asian women, and the division of labor between the two founders, Ou Yirou and Wang Jiayin, was also quite clear: Ou Yirou, who graduated from Parsons School of Design in New York, was responsible for design and products; Wang Jiayin, who was the first Asian buyer of Victoria's Secret, served as CEO and was the head of operations.
From its inception in 2016 to the end of 2022, Maia Active has achieved good revenue performance by relying on core products such as "waist pants" and "cloud pants", and has also harvested a number of financings in the capital market.
In terms of revenue, Maia Active, which focused on online sales in the early days of its establishment, exceeded 100 million yuan in online revenue in 2019, and its first offline store landed in Shanghai in the same year. In 2021, the revenue will exceed 300 million yuan, and in 2022, the brand revenue will exceed 500 million yuan, and it will be profitable for the first time.
In terms of financing, MAIA Active started with an angel round of financing of nearly 10 million yuan from Dynamic Capital and Datai Capital in June 2017, and then completed a round of financing of 40 million yuan in May 2018, led by Sequoia Capital and Chinese Culture, followed by Volcanic Stone Capital and Metakey Capital.
In November 2020 and December 2021, Maia Active successively completed Series B and Series C financing invested by China Growth Capital and Belle State-owned Assets, with a total amount of nearly 200 million yuan.
However, until Anta announced the acquisition in mid-October 2023, Maia Active's 2023 fiscal year was not good.
On the one hand, after achieving profitability for the first time in 2022, the yoga market in Maia Active, which focuses on women's sports products, will become more competitive in 2023.
Once lululemon has a *** grid, Maia Active loses its ** advantage. At the same time, lululemon**'s expansion momentum is also quite obvious, and as of the end of October 2023, the quarterly report shows that the number of stores in the Chinese market has reached 114. As of the end of January 2024, Maia Active has a total of 37 stores across the country, of which 14 are located in Shanghai, covering 13 cities.
On the other hand, Maia Active's Women's Day marketing in 2023 is wrong, and it has suffered the biggest crisis since its inception. For half a year after that, it was relatively quiet and there was no major movement.
Until October 13, 2023, ANTA acquired the Maia Active brand 7513% equity. This acquisition is considered by the venture capital circle to be an "honorable exit" from Maia Active and its previous investors and financiers.
With the acquisition of Maia Active, Anta is looking at its product strength in the women's sports market to fill the gap in this market segment.
After the completion of the internal adjustment, MAIA Active will be backed by the retail system of Anta Group, but the departure of the founder and chief designer will be marked with a huge question mark on how to maintain product strength and cope with the rapidly changing product requirements of the Chinese market.