Dan Soviero has scored a funding win for his company, Signature Athletics.
Soviero, a former University of Tampa student that founded Signature Lacrosse in 2016, has closed a $2 million "seed plus" round with roughly 200 investors, all who wish to remain undisclosed.
"This is the route we wanted to go; we wanted to bring on strategic investors," Soviero said, adding he only sold them non-voting shares. "With venture capital and private equity funds, it wasn't going to make sense."
Signature Lacrosse was originally founded to create more affordable lacrosse equipment while maintaining the quality, in order to further the reach of the sport. The company did well. In 2020, it had more than $8 million in sales, 30,000 clients and it raised $500,000.
But as Soviero continued to work with college, high school and youth programs, he found another issue. The traditional process of ordering uniforms for teams was incredibly archaic, starting with a sign-up sheet system given to the program's coordinator, shipped to a factory, and usually ended with a misspelled name or size for at least one athlete.
"The poor program director is in the middle of the process and the only thing they can do is get it wrong," Soviero said. "There’s no winning."
Signature Athletics launched a patent-pending technology in 2021 that allows parents to directly order their uniforms — as well as team merchandise and some sports equipment — that lets the apparel be made on-demand and entirely in the U.S.
"With sports, there's a tight deadline — if you don’t get it in time for the game you miss the season basically," Soviero said. "And with the supply chain issues, our competitors couldn't get to them – versus we could when they were in a pinch."
The company has three-year exclusive partnerships with each of the athletic levels (college, high school and youth) and is on track to sign over 300 programs by the end of the year. With the funding, Soviero plans to expand from lacrosse and add field hockey, soccer and basketball to the roster.
Signature Athletics has 18 full-time employees, with roughly half of those in the Tampa Bay region. While Soviero said he plans to "leave the door open" when it comes to additional funding, he is not actively seeking a Series A in the near future.
