COMPANY

Name: H4X

Legal Name: H4X.gg (brand under Moniker Inc.)

Location: Saint Laurent, Quebec, Canada

Founded: 2018

Founder(s): Jon Gurman, Jens Hilgers

Website: https://h4x.gg

Social Media Following: 2188 Likes on Facebook, 65.4K on Twitter, 3711 on Instagram

INDUSTRY – Sports Apparel

Projections: $186.4Bn by 2020 growing at CAGR of 4.3% in 2015-2020 (Source)

Introduction

H4X.gg is an e-sports apparel brand that aims to meet the particular needs and demands of the gaming community. They manufacture and sell streetwear that corresponds to trends and fashions within the gaming community, in addition to sportswear to meet the needs of competitive gamers. Its competitive line is targeted at professional gamers, while its streetwear is targeted at gaming enthusiasts and fans.

The Product

H4X.gg sells sweatshirts, hoodies, posture correctors, sleeves, t-shirts, jerseys, hats and joggers, including a special AllPro line designed especially for competitive gamers. Jerseys and sweatshirts range from $40 to $60, while the AllPro Line features jerseys and sweatshirts priced between $60-$70. T-shirts are priced at $25, while AllPro line t-shirts are sold at up to $35-$40 dollars. An H4X posture corrector sells for $25. All prices are as of publishing.

H4X.gg’s clothing incorporates adaptations like roomy fits (to hold the equipment and gear used by gamers), thumb holes in long sleeved garments, ventilation holes and comfortable fabrics that wick sweat (so that competitive gamers can play for extended periods of time without getting uncomfortable or allowing their competition to see them sweat profusely in high stress environments), and reflective materials (to suit the high-tech aesthetic that gamers adopt).

Origin and Founding Team

H4X founder Jon Gurman brings with him a long history of experience working in apparel, particularly sports apparel. He grew up around his father’s New York based wholesale sports clothing company, JayGur Imports, and began handling international deals for the company in his early 20s, going on to work with numerous Fortune 500 companies, including Disney, Marvel, UFC and Star Wars, and worked as a wholesaler with brands like Walmart.

He decided to form his own e-sports company when he noticed parallels between e-sports’ fandom, and that of UFC. He was looking for a partner and investors, and eventually met BITKRAFT Esports Ventures founding partner Jens Hilgers. With Hilgers’ serious financial backing, the pair formed Moniker Inc., a dedicated e-sports umbrella company, which plans to serve as an umbrella over several e-sports brands, including its first, H4X.gg.

Gurman was particularly inspired to create H4X when he chanced upon what he calls the deplorable state of e-sports fashion. While watching competitors at the gaming competition Twitch, Gurman noticed how different teams were wearing outfits of visibly poor quality, and that many teams didn’t have uniforms at all. He decided to capitalize on this gap in the market by creating H4X, targeted specifically at e-sports players and practitioners, and aims to emulate the success of Vans in the field of skating, and Lululemon in yoga apparel.

Performance and Trends

H4X’s primary investor is BITKRAFT Esports Ventures, which co-founded H4X’s parent company, Moniker Inc, along with founder Jon Gurman.

In just two years, H4X has gone on to sign several lucrative deals in the field of e-sports, including partnering with ESL (formerly known as Electronic Sports League, and the world’s largest and oldest currently operational esports company) and DreamHack to become the official apparel supplier of numerous ESL One, Intel® Extreme Masters and DreamHack events through 2018. The size of this is unknown, but is bound to be sizeable given the exclusive names and brands involved.

H4X products are also sold at 49 Macy’s outlets in the United States.