Philly’s Maya Nazareth Lands $300K Shark Tank Deal for Her Women’s Fightwear Brand

Alchemize Fightwear founder Maya Nazareth on Shark Tank / Photograph courtesy of Disney

When Fairmount’s Maya Nazareth walked onto the set of Shark Tank this past June she didn’t feel jittery the way other contestants might about going hat in hand to the show’s celebrity moguls for an investment in a promising business.

The 27-year-old entrepreneur already knew that the team would be lucky to partner with her. That’s why she was asking for $250,000 in exchange for a five percent stake in her rapidly growing company, Alchemize Fightwear, which makes clothing tailored to women like her who participate in the “fight sports” of jiujitsu, wrestling, boxing, and mixed martial arts (MMA).

All of the other fightwear brands on the market are designed for men’s bodies, Nazareth told the Sharks, sharing how, in matches, inadequate body coverage created humiliating moments for women. She herself had had her pants fall down in one fight, and her shirt ride up in another. The worst was the time her opponent had her in a chokehold — and she looked down and realized her chest was exposed.

“If jiujitsu hadn’t had such an impactful effect on my life, I would have quit, because the gear made me so uncomfortable,” says Nazareth.

With Alchemize, she knew she had a good product, she told the Sharks. Thousands of women had already bought her gear and raved on-line about it. Last December, Forbes named her to the magazine’s prestigious “30 Under 30” list for her groundbreaking contributions to women’s fight sports. And here in Philly, she was nominated last year for a Rad Award, which recognizes women of impact and achievement, for her awesome products.

The Sharks were dazzled by Nazareth’s story and confidence — and salivated over the potential for Alchemize to own a sports-gear niche ignored by big players like Nike.

By the end of Nazareth’s pitch, she had secured a deal that’s somewhat of a rarity on the show: three Sharks — Alex Ohanian, Lori Greiner, and Kendra Scott — after some spirited wrestling with Nazareth herself, offered her $300,000 for a 15 percent stake in the company.

“I can’t stress this enough,” Ohanian said to Nazareth about the potential of Alchemize. “With our combined forces and expertise on the retail front, on the commerce front, and on the internet and consumer side, I think it could be tremendous and, most importantly, do a lot of good.”

Added Shark Daymond John, “Watch out, Nike!”

It may not have been the exact deal Nazareth had come for, but she rushed to the judges for hugs and cheers anyway. Because she’s competed in enough bouts to know a win when she sees it.

“Someone needed to fix it.”

Photograph courtesy of Alchemize Fightwear

The seeds of Alchemize were planted back in 2015 when Nazareth, then 17, stepped into her first jiujitsu class (which she mistakenly thought was “fitness boxing”) and fell hard for the martial art’s focus on ground fighting to subdue an opponent. Because it’s an especially effective self-defense system for smaller or weaker individuals against larger opponents, it’s popular among women.

Nazareth was soon attending regular classes, grappling on the floor, quashing men a lot bigger than she was. As she told the Sharks, the experience was “life changing.”

“I was a shy kid who had been bullied all my life,” she said, “and jiujitsu helped me discover that I was strong and that I could learn skills that could help me defend myself.”

Nazareth started working on Alchemize when, as a 20-year-old business major at the University of Delaware, she interviewed 100-plus women in fight sports about the problems they faced with fightwear. All of them were as frustrated as she was — and they weren’t alone.

Some 46 percent of school-aged girls struggled to exercise because of a lack of properly fitted sports bras; 50 percent experienced breast pain during their sport, a problem that was compounded when specialty gear was needed for the activity; and, in one instance, at least a dozen British athletes felt that poor bra-fit had negatively impacted their performance at the Tokyo Olympics.

“Someone needed to fix [the problem], and I knew that women’s fight sports were growing dramatically,” says Nazareth. “I just thought it was kind of a matter of time.”

She found a garment manufacturer in China and started working on test designs, finding comfortable, seamless, moisture-wicking fabric, trying on the prototypes herself to see where gear needed to be longer or tighter. After graduation in 2020, she landed a marketing job, but kept her Alchemize side hustle, using what she was learning at work to develop a strategy for her brand.

In 2021, Nazareth won a grant to fund an Alchemize purchase order for its first two rash guards (tightly fitting, long-sleeve tops) and quit her job to focus on running the business. She has since expanded the brand, which is sold exclusively online and now features singlets, rash guards and gis (the uniform typically worn for martial arts and jiu-jitsu), as well as tees, sweatshirts, jerseys, leggings and other loungewear and athletic gear. Many have high necklines, built-in sports bras, and double linings so nothing is see-through.

For jujitsu and MMA fighter Ajaye Hill, Alchemize has been a game changer. She started wearing the brand as a white-belt fighter, after watching a video from her first tournament and feeling dismayed to see how often, during the competition, she kept tugging at her clothes, adjusting her pants, and pulling down her shirt.

“I’m watching this video, trying to watch myself fight and get feedback, and I’m just fidgeting with my outfit the whole time,” she says.

When she donned her first Alchemize gear — a rash guard and no-slip pants that tie at the waist — she immediately felt “powerful.”

“I walked onto the mat for the first time, and I was like, no one can tap me out,” she says. “It’s no longer a thought whether what I’m wearing is going to expose me, or how it’s going to fit. I feel good. I feel like I look good. I feel like I fight good.”

Finding Consumers by Creating Community

Photograph courtesy of Alchemy Fightwear

In the early days of Alchemize, says Nazareth, “People would always tell me, ‘Maya, you need to go where all of the women in jiujitsu are.” But she quickly realized there weren’t a lot of opportunities — just a few small camps geared toward women.

So in 2023 Nazareth started organizing her own three-day, all-inclusive camp-like events for women/fighters — camps with “Girl Scout vibes,” says Suzette Melendez, director of community for Alchemize. Attendees receive instruction in fight sports and grappling, but they also spend time by the water, and go to sessions about nutrition or how to train while recovering from injuries.

For many, the camps (there have been seven so far, with more than 1,000 attendees) have presented an opportunity to make lasting friendships. One forty-something camper told Melendez she made 10 friends at a camp event — and the group has since traveled together to other jiujitsu gatherings.

“We have women who travel to every single camp with us now,” Melendez says. “These women are moms, cousins, wives, finding themselves in life. They train as an escape. They train for self-defense. They train for self-love.”

She’s also found that some of her campers train as a way to survive the trauma of an assault, she says — so Alchemize now offers seminars on trauma recovery at their events. At the Alchemize camp in Austin last year, the Elizabeth Smart Foundation, which works to end sexual assault, hosted panels focused on mental health. Beyond camp, Alchemize also offers survivors free self-defense classes in Philly and donates to organizations like Women Against Abuse and the Domestic Abuse Project of Delaware County, which support survivors of domestic violence and work to end it.

“Every single instructor that we bring on, has brought a tremendous amount of vulnerability and comfort to the women in our events,” says Melendez. “It shows, hey, we’re all human, and we’re all fighting a battle, and we’re all here for each other.”

Profit and Purpose

Alchemize Fightwear founder Maya Nazareth with Lori Greiner and Alexis Ohanian on Shark Tank / Photograph courtesy of Disney

To date, Alchemize has brought in more than $1.8 million in revenue. Last year, says Nazareth, the company did $500,000 in sales; she expects the company to hit profitability this year with sales of $875,000. Nazareth will use the Sharks’ investment to open three retail stores in 2026. Meanwhile, the publicity from the show has been priceless.

“We’ve been received really positively,” Nazareth says. “I want to be the major brand for the fighter in every woman. I don’t think there’s a brand out there that really speaks to women that are pushing themselves in every area of their life.

“Women come to ‘fight sports’ for all kinds of reasons, but almost every single woman leaves with their confidence totally transformed,” says Nazareth — and how they see themselves totally transformed, too.