OPINION
Above and below: Claudia at the Entrepeneurship World Cup - Swijin won first place
One even pulled open a desk drawer and said: “I have already allotted my private fund for the year, but let me know if you close the round... I’ll see if I have any loose change left.” One angel group suggested I find an investor who wanted to take this on as a “hobby or pet project—like a donation to a cause.” But then there were the others who saw the tech and the
grit. One said, “This is the best pitch deck I’ve ever seen. I get 100s of these a day, and we are keeping this one to show other startups how to do it right.” Another said, “You built all THIS for under a million dollars? I’m in.”
Performance over Activewear Working with female athletes to co-develop the product was my favourite part. As a former teacher, I love the energy of young people. Athletes are direct; they need the best possible equipment. We worked with national soccer players, Olympic marathoners, and American football players across a great variety of body shapes. They will get impatient with you if there is a failed experiment, but praise you greatly if you nail it. We have patented our first invention, the Freeli (medium impact, reversible, with a front pocket for water bottles or gel packs). We have filed our patent for the Schnuggi (B-C cups) with integrated stabilisation zones. And we are about to launch our “Masterpiece” for D-G cups—a double-layered bra that both encapsulates and stabilises for women with the greatest pain point. Swijin is not an activewear brand. It is a performance wear brand focused on the female athlete only. When I speak to groups of young female athletes, they show me their scars from bras and plead with me to make gendered uniforms next. Men have said to me, “Come on, Claudia. Can a T-shirt be innovative?” I realise that’s just so lazy. Yes, T-shirts can and should be innovative. At Swijin, we are proving that when you stop treating the female body as an afterthought and start engineering for it, you change the game entirely. I can’t go back and give my younger self a Swijin bra, but I can make sure the next generation of women never has to wonder if their body is the problem.
52 | April 2026
www.bikebiz.com
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