Kang Leads IDA Seed Round for Women’s Sports Footwear

Michele Kang’s Kynisca Sports International Ltd. led a $2 million seed funding round for women’s brand IDA Sports. The new financing will provide a lift to IDA’s research and development as well as the manufacturing of soccer cleats formed to the feet of female soccer players, regardless of skill level or age.

Three other firms participated in the seed round: Elysian Park Ventures, the investment arm of the Los Angeles Dodgers; Tipt Ventures, a women’s sports venture capital firm; and Firebird Ventures, a London-based VC firm focused on gender equity for women and children.

“There is minimal sports science research focused solely on female athletes, resulting in training routines, performance recovery plans and shoe and clothing designs with a male body type as the baseline,” Kang said in a statement. “Women’s sports should never be an afterthought—they should be recognized as a standalone, commercially viable product, and it’s exciting to partner with an innovative brand that shares the same sentiment.”

Kang has long bemoaned the lack of investment in sports science for female athletes, which is one of the primary reasons why she launched Kynisca over the summer. The firm is the first multi-team organization dedicated solely to women’s sports, with Kang’s three soccer clubs (NWSL’s Washington Spirit, Olympique Lyonnais Féminin and London City Lionesses) and the Kynisca Innovation Hub.

IDA’s founder and CEO Laura Youngson lauded Kynisca for taking a direct approach to addressing the dearth of investment into performance gear specifically for women. “IDA has always had the singular goal of investing in female athletes to provide them with the products that they not only deserve but ones that can also help maximize their performance,” she said.

According to IDA, female athletes are four to eight times more likely to sustain ACL injuries. The company makes products designed with the idea of not only mitigating preventable pain but to reduce the risk of major lower leg injuries, especially to the knees and ankles.

IDA said that its revenues tripled from 2022 to 2023 and expects the same for 2024.

The design issues aren’t just limited to soccer, as women’s basketball has contended with the same problem for decades. Only in recent years have sneaker companies developed products specifically for the female basketball player, but those efforts aren’t widespread yet. Though some of the WNBA’s best like Minnesota Lynx guard Courtney Williams and Indiana Fever center Aliyah Boston wear kicks modeled for the female foot, others like Breanna Stewart and Sabrina Ionescu (teammates for the WNBA champion New York Liberty) have sneakers designed for male and female players alike.