Virat Kohli joins Agilitas Sports as investor, exits PumaOn Monday, Virat Kohli officially announced his exit from Puma to join Agilitas Sports as an investor and co-creator for his athleisure, sportswear, and fragrance brand One8. Under the deal, Kohli acquired a 1.94% stake in Agilitas for ?40 crore, while Agilitas acquired One8.In an interaction with Anees Hussain, Abhishek Ganguly, Founder & CEO of Agilitas Sports, explains what the deal means for the brand and why he believes One8 is poised to become a billion-dollar business.
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What’s changing for One8 from its previous avatar under Puma?
One8 as a brand started about 9-10 years back. Puma by the end of it used to do about 250 crores of business annually, but it was a licensing agreement. The ownership was never with Puma. There were limitations on innovation, design, aesthetics, functionality, and independence of retail existence.
Now, the ownership of the brand is being acquired by Agilitas. The entire firepower of Agilitas, including the manufacturing, design, R&D, tech, and distribution strength, will now be fully under the house of Agilitas. One8 will also get a complete brand redesign, a new identity.
It is a completely fresh, independent ambition. We will launch our own web store and shopping app in the next 45 days. Virat now has two roles: first is a shareholder in Agilitas. Second, he stays put as a co-creator in the process of building One8.
Ganguly on expansion timeline
What’s the expansion timeline?
We will launch the new avatar in India beginning of next year. By the middle of next year, we will have exclusive monobrand stores in India. By the end of next year, we will expand to global markets like the UK, US, and Australia through retail partners. You will see global athletes wearing One8 next year. It will be visible in marquee global sports events, which come once every four years, which will be a first for an Indian sports brand.
Which sports categories will One8 compete in?
We will have at least four sports categories which will be on pitch, or on court, or on track. Cricket is very obvious with Virat being in the origin of the story. The brand will also dabble into other sports categories.
Ganguly on One8’s future
What’s the long-term vision for One8?
US, Germany, Switzerland, and even China have global sportswear brands of their own. India doesn’t have any. One8 is going to be that high-performance, multi-sport, premium, athletic sportswear brand for the globe. My vision is to build a billion-dollar business that competes with the best in the world. I am not looking at it happening in the next 3-4 years. But if we build strong product ethos and quality distribution, the Indian and global markets will equally lap up an India-origin sports brand.
To support this scale, how is your manufacturing engine, Mochiko, performing?
We acquired Mochiko as Rs 640 crore revenue business in FY23. Revenue grew to about Rs 728 crore FY24. We expect to close FY26 at around Rs 1,450 crore. We currently have a capacity of 14 million pairs of sports footwear annually and are running at nearly 90% utilisation.
Do you plan to increase manufacturing capacity?
We are not going to just double capacity every second year. We will add capacity slowly, about 15% every year. However, for One8, specifically for high-performance needs, we have built additional specialised capacity ranging from sole factories to an R&D lab in Noida, to tie-ups with some Far East players. The focus has been on not just matching existing global standards, but exceeding it.
Beyond Mochiko and One8, what is the update?
Lotto in just 3 months of onboarding is clocking Rs 6-7 crore monthly revenue rate. With new categories like apparel and exclusive stores expected to launch soon, we expect it to be a Rs 100 run rate business very soon. We are also launching a retail concept, a 30,000 square feet sports yard on Mysore Road in Bengaluru by the end of this month. It is a multi-brand concept which will house global sportswear brands alongside our own roster.