Tennis star Elina Svitolina joins French startup Tiva's pre-seed round
What's the deal? Elina SvitolinaDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, the world No. 7 in women's tennis, has joined French startup TivaDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → as both an ambassador and investor. The company, which makes performance-oriented grip gels and waxes for athletes, raised more than $600,000 (€525,000) in a pre-seed round at a roughly $4M post-money valuation, led by Portugal-based investment firm Apex.
Svitolina discovered Tiva's hand grip gel last year and integrated it across her training and match routines. "For me, right now I'm in the late stages of my career, so it's important to find some projects that I actually believe in," she said.
Why now? Tiva is trying to define a new category it calls "performance cosmetics" — products designed not for beauty but for athletic function. Co-founder Louis Cossart, a Paris native and former college tennis player, conceived the idea while working in athlete operations at the Tokyo and Paris Olympics, where he observed gaps in what was available to competitors.
Cossart and co-founder Amaury Obadia spent six to eight months developing Tiva's initial products. By the end of 2025, the brand landed in its first IntersportDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → store — which Cossart called the "Dick's Sporting GoodsDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → of France." The company has since built a following among elite athletes in tennis, padel, fitness, and golf.
What could go wrong? Tiva is betting on a category that doesn't formally exist yet. Carving out space in Europe'US$73.3B-plus cosmetics market with a niche performance angle is ambitious for a pre-seed company. Scaling from athlete endorsements and specialty retail to mainstream adoption will require significantly more capital and distribution muscle.
The startup also faces the classic challenge of athlete-backed brands: translating pro credibility into everyday consumer demand.
The signal: Tiva's round sits at the intersection of two emerging patterns: elite athletes increasingly acting as angel investors rather than passive endorsers, and a growing wave of startups targeting hyper-specific niches within the broader sports performance market. With Apex — classified as a corporate investor that leverages a network of over 100 athlete investors — leading the round, the bet is less on cosmetics and more on whether athlete-driven distribution can shortcut the traditional brand-building playbook in an entirely new product category. Atlanta Braves pitcher Joe Jiménez, another Apex investor, has already asked about trying the product in his team's facility.
Source: msn.com
