Venture feature: VB America

VENTURE FEATURE

VB America

Founded by Kate Fitzgerald

When Kate Fitzgerald was a junior in high school, playing volleyball and looking ahead toward college, she was frustrated with the limited offerings from fashion and athletic brands for her sport. Simply put, there just wasn’t very much good-looking volleyball merchandise.

After arriving at Arizona State University in 2021 as a student-athlete on the beach volleyball team, Fitzgerald, now 20, thought she might have to wait even longer before launching a business that could upgrade the clothing and gear for athletes like herself who wanted to be comfortable and stylish. But after a meeting with Jeff Kunowski, associate director of innovation programs at the Global Sport Institute, Fitzgerald realized she could start much sooner.

Fitzgerald first joined Venture Devils, a program that helps anyone in the ASU community along their entrepreneurial journey, at the start of her sophomore year in 2021. From there, she launched VB America, the volleyball brand she dreamt of as a teenager, soon printing her first several clothing designs with the help of her father.

As a member of Sun Devil Athletics’ name, image, and likeness subcommittee, an ASU graduate, and an entrepreneur himself, Kunowski became a trusted resource for Fitzgerald and guided her through early stages of business development.

“[Kunowski] just wants to help everyone succeed,” says Fitzgerald. “He is all-in, and if you’re willing to put in the work and work with him, he is all-in to help you, and he’s so excited about everything. Not only that, but he went through it. ” After winning $5,000 and beta-testing opportunities with SDA at the second annual SDA Venture Challenge in 2022, Fitzgerald hopes to use the rest of the year to negotiate licensing agreements with ASU and other universities. This would allow VB America to incorporate university branding into its clothing designs, which are printed onto t-shirts, sweatshirts, tank tops and more. From there, Fitzgerald hopes she can develop a relationship as a supplier for Follett, the education firm that runs many university bookstores around the country.

In the meantime, Fitzgerald, an Arizona native, will finish the two remaining years of her biomedical sciences program and apply for nursing school, all while continuing to chase down a Pac-12 championship in beach volleyball for ASU.

“You’re a student, so why not take the risk while you’re still in school?” she says. “I still have a degree I’m getting, so why not take the risk and go for it?”

A symbol of what’s achievable for student-athletes at ASU who think creatively and use the resources available at places like GSI, Fitzgerald expects VB America to be part of her life for the foreseeable future. The business is not slowing down, and she doesn’t expect to, either.

“The biggest thing I’ve learned is you will have a set idea, then it will go in a million different directions, and you’ve got to just go with it,” she says. “This isn’t just something I just want to do for the next two years at school. I want to take this and turn it into the biggest volleyball brand that I can. ”

Photo courtesy of Kate Fitzgerald