French Open star Elina Svitolina and the chief executive of the ATP Tour Eno Polo are part of a £450,000 fund raise for a French performance start-up, City AM can reveal.

TIVA’s pre-seed will help to develop a series of marginal gains products aimed at skin contact between hands and tennis racket grips.

APEX, a fund which counts over 100 elite athletes and invests in the likes of the Alpine Formula 1 team, is part of the raise, which also features former Adidas vice-president Alberto Uncini Manganelli and Lars Jonker, the co-founder of software firm Oaky.

“We use cosmetics as direct performance tools,” TIVA co-founder Louis Cossart said. “Every friction point is an opportunity to optimise execution and consistency.

“Our goal is to deliver the one per cent that can make a 100 per cent difference.”

Tennis raise for marginal gains

The two products – Ultimate Dry Grip and Performance Grip Wax – come amid a surge in interest in ways elite athletes can maximise marginal gains at the highest level. 

Ukrainian tennis player Svitolina said: “For me, high performance is all about the details, the small details that make a big difference.

“Investing in the brand felt like a very natural decision since I am genuinely using them on the court.”

Added APEX’s Koen Bosma: “Any opportunity to better our own game in racket sports (in my case, padel) we cherish and fund.”

City AM understands that TIVA will look to expand into the United Kingdom in the coming months, with its current operations based out of Paris and Bayonne.

The fund will support the product launches of items that are designed to help with hand control in humidity, and preserve grip quality on rackets.

It comes amid a hot spell across the Roland Garros period and ahead of the grass court season, headlined by the Queen’s Championships and Wimbledon.