Industry Fashion Founded 2012 Type of business Private | Website ministry.co Headquarters Boston | |
Key people Aman Advani Co-Founder,
Gihan Amarasiriwardena Co-Founder,
Kit Hickey Co-Founder,
Kevin Rustagi, Co-Founder Products Clothing and business attire Brands Apollo
Aviator
Aero
Atlas
Aeon
ATMOS Founders Kit Hickey, Aman Advani, Kevin Rustagi, Gihan Amarasiriwardena Profiles | ||
Ministry of Supply is a Boston-based high performance business wear men's fashion brand launched in 2012 and founded by former Massachusetts Institute of Technology students using some of the same temperature regulating material as NASA astronauts in their clothing.
Contents
The company currently sells the majority of their clothing online and currently has brick and mortar retail locations in Washington D.C., San Francisco, Boston, Chicago, Atlanta, and Bethesda.
History
Ministry of Supply was started by Aman Advani, Kit Hickey, Kevin Rustagi, and Gihan Amarasiriwardena, with the intention of creating technologically advanced office apparel.
Kit, Gihan, Kevin, and Aman met as students at MIT, where they quickly realized they shared a vision for everyday clothing that could be as capable as their athletic gear. Aman and Gihan had been sewing prototypes for years, and Kevin and Kit’s drive to innovate customer experience was unstoppable. The group joined forces in 2012 and introduced their first performance dress shirt. The Apollo Kickstarter campaign set the record for most-funded fashion project at the time, and gave way to the full line of garments that continues to evolve for optimal comfort and capability.
After a year of product development and small-scale sales in the spring of 2012, the company decided to conduct a Kickstarter campaign to fund the creation of a synthetic knit-blend dress shirt with heat and moisture management, odor control, and offered a full range of motion. The campaign raised over $400,000 and became the largest amount raised for a fashion product at the time on a Kickstarter project.
In June 2013, the company again went to Kickstarter for a campaign to raise funds to produce a high performance dress sock. This campaign raised more than $200,000 for the start up company.
In late September 2013, the company raised $1.1 million in seed round financing from VegasTechFund, SK Ventures, and Red Sox pitcher Craig Breslow. The $50,000 investment from Breslow came after his fiancée bought one of the shirts as a birthday present and he wore the shirt while traveling on the road with the team.
In November 2013, the company opened their first pop-up store in Manhattan selling dress shirts, socks, and chino pants.
In January 2014, the company received $3.8 million in venture funding from undisclosed investors.
In June 2014, the second pop-up store opened on Newbury Street in Boston's Back Bay neighborhood.
Design
The Ministry of Supply’s goal is to uses new materials, aerospace, robotic engineering, and thermal analysis to create a new category in the design of better-fitting men’s business attire. The company seeks limited beta testing through customer input and feedback with when designing their clothing. Early customers are integrated into the development and design process by inviting them to be part of the research into the final product.
Company name
The company is named after the Ministry of Supply, a British government department that was formed in 1939 to coordinate the supply of equipment to all three branches of the armed forces during World War II.