After playing professional hockey and working as a coaching consultant for more than two decades, Doug Lynch realized some popular apparel technology used in athletic gear didn’t align with science.
“What moisture wicking does is take sweat off of your skin and into your shirt, so your shirt is soaking wet, but your skin's dry. That actually goes against thermal regulation and the science of sweat,” Lynch said. “As our core temperature rises, our body temperature rises, that turns into heat and that heat turns into sweat, and we sweat to cool down our organs. So when moisture wicking is pulling the sweat off your skin, it's robbing your body of the chemical reaction and is actually pulling you down.”
Wanting to make athletic apparel that improved performance and was sustainable, Lynch founded Zenkai in Portland with his friend and co-founder Raj Shah.
Zenkai uses technology called Filium in its material to repel water and keep sweat on skin and off clothes, allowing athletes to get multiple uses out of their apparel while cutting down on water use between washes.
Zenkai’s products are also made with 92% biodegradable materials and cotton fabric, ensuring a more sustainable footprint compared to synthetic polyester fabrics that are typically used in products like leggings and sports bras.
Footwear and apparel makers in Portland are becoming more conscious of the environmental impact of products that contain polyester-based and synthetic materials that will live on for centuries in landfills, helping create what is now a sustainable apparel cluster in the Rose City.
Zenkai announced a $1 million seed round on Dec. 8, and Lynch said it would go toward marketing and product development. Those new products will include a new and improved version of its Filium technology that Lynch hopes can launch Zenkai into making more than $1 million in sales for the year.
He also hopes to be able to raise another $3 million to $5 million in another seed round in about a year and a half, he said.
Lynch said before this funding, Zenkai was gaining traction with the help of his wife, actress Jordan Claire Robbins, who was recommending the products to her colleagues while on set for the Netflix hit, "Umbrella Academy." Robbins plays the mother in the show, Grace, and Lynch said he hopes Zenkai continues to make a name for itself among celebrities and micro influencers.
“We've got now NHL players, NBA players, all these athletes wearing it because we're actually different than anything else in the system, and then we have a bunch of high net worth individuals that came on board,” Lynch said. “So we've got this insane group of advisers, investors, athletes, actors, and we're all gonna start telling the story starting in January to really launch us in 2023.”
