Lululemon buys stakes in Canadian cycling apparel company 7mesh

Vancouver-based apparel giant teams up with Squamish-based upstart

Philippe Tremblay June 20, 2017

Vancouver-based Lululemon has acquired a stake in Canadian-based cycling apparel company 7mesh. The acquisition could impact how the yoga, running and athletics apparel maker develops their technical fabrics according to Fortune as they seek to to get cycling wear on their shelves by 2018.

7mesh is based in Squamish, B.C. and Lululemon’s minority investment allows the two companies to collaborate in developing apparel through Lululemon’s research and development arm called Whitespace. Lululemon have not broken into cycling apparel but the partnership sets them up to begin to develop it with a upstart Canadian company.

“Cycling is a category that is small but if we could leverage a partnership with them, it could make sense for us to enter it effectively,” said Lululemon CFO and COO Stuart Haselden about the investment to Fortune. “We aren’t pursuing [cycling] as a big growth driver for our business,” but he added, “it is a category that a number of our guests participate in.”

Lululemon is aiming to have a line of cycling apparel developed in collaboration with 7mesh on store shelves by the middle of 2018 with Haselden adding that a full takeover down the line of 7mesh will be an option that will stay open. Lululemon is making efforts to expand into other activities after their success with yoga apparel. They have released apparel for running, swimming and outwear.