Midway through his Master’s degree in industrial design and entrepreneurship, Truls Brataas left his native Norway and took some time out to tick off items on his bucket list. He spent a couple of months traveling the world, learning to surf in South America and trying out his new skills in Central and North America, Australia, and New Zealand. When he returned home in 2009, he headed to the bay of Hoddevik, known for its cold water surfing. “And there, in the surf, I met Jon Olsson,” Brataas says.

While Brataas was a grad student, Olsson was a world champion skier with a huge online following. The unlikely pair bonded over their interest in extreme sports and the challenges they faced while traveling with skis and surfboards around the world. “We saw that these extreme sports bring you all over the world, but the luggage for these things was crap at the time,” says Brataas. “There had been no innovation.” This led to an idea. “We started wondering what would happen if you were to create a brand that was for sports geeks who didn’t want to look like sports geeks.”

Db’s first bag was designed in Brataas’s dorm room. Beginning his research, he found an industry that had scarcely changed for decades and began to solve the problems he himself had experienced. “We created a bag that could be folded together for compression; it had this ribcage system internally, which was inspired by the human ribs,” he says. “It could adjust to every single length of skis and snowboards, and it was super lightweight.” They marketed the bag through Olsson’s online audience and introduced a design language that looked more to fashion than function. “Our brand compass at the time was to take Red Bull, with its action sports side, and to take Acne Studios, and merge them together.” Needing a name for the first bag, Olsson decided to ask his followers. The name Douchebags quickly emerged as a fan favorite, and in 2012, the first bag launched.

The company initially found an international audience who shared Olsson and Brataas’s frustrations with the industry. After this success, they decided to branch out. The next release was the Hugger backpack, inspired by the mathematics of the golden ratio and the first major Douchebags breakout. It initially sold well through the action sports world before university students began buying the bag. “It became the first big commercial engine, which could do hundreds of thousands of units, not tens of thousands of units,” says Brataas. This success led to the company’s top-line revenue growing by 220% between 2016 and 2017.

After over a decade of innovating and scaling beyond sports luggage to a broader range of luggage and bags, LVMH Luxury Ventures acquired a 12% stake in Db in 2024 at a valuation just shy of $100 million. Announcing the investment at the time, Julie Bercovy, CEO of LVMH Luxury Ventures Advisors, described Db as “combining truly distinctive designs, high-quality and functionality, and geared towards a close community of outdoor enthusiasts, athletes, creative people and passionate travelers, with whom the brand entertains deep ties.”

The brand, Bercovy added, had “a strong position in Scandinavia with an untapped growth potential in the rest of the world.” Other investors have since come on board. Norwegian fishing billionaire Gustav Magnar Witzøe invested around 50 million NOK (approximately $5.4 million) in 2025 at the same time as Manchester City soccer player Erling Haaland acquired a minority stake valued at 10 million NOK ($1.1 million). In the company’s last public earnings filing for fiscal 2024, revenue reached 409 million NOK (approximately $44 million).

Growing up

As the company’s profile grew, the founders decided it was time for a change. Douchebags — the name coined from within the skiing and snowboarding community — was dropped in 2019, and the shorter Db was used in its place. It was a sign that Brataas and Olsson were looking into how their products could be used in different walks of life. “It feels a bit like growing up,” Brataas says. “You start in your garage, you’re a rebel and a startup, and then you grow up as a person, and as a brand, and it’s the right time to change as you want the brand to become bigger.”

In 2022, Db launched its Ramverk suitcases, no longer aimed just at action sports enthusiasts. It marked a shift for Db and a new focus, positioning the brand as the luggage choice for the creative industries. This new direction wasn’t too much of a departure for Db. “When you think of action sports, the majority of it is about creativity,” says Richard Collier, who joined as CEO in 2024. “We’re enabling you to go out and do your thing, be creative, do what you want to do, and travel to the places you want to go to.” For Brataas, the “red thread” that has always existed at Db comes from skiers, snowboarders, surfers, and “the creative drive you find within those people.” This refocusing has been a major part of Db’s success, helping it expand beyond its original niche and reach the wider creative class. No longer just for skiers or snowboarders, the brand now targets photographers, designers, and art directors as well.

This shift shows how far Db has come, from a company started in the surf at Hoddevik and shaped over shots of rum in Brataas’s dorm room. The investment from LVMH allows that transformation to continue. “The capital has enabled a lot of our international expansion,” says Collier, pointing particularly to the US, which has become Db’s second largest market, with sales topping $5 million in 2025, an increase of 33% from a year earlier. Collier hopes that Db’s investors — including Haaland, who fronts the brand’s newest campaign — can help it grow further. “If you can find a very famous Norwegian who you share values with, and who can be a great face for your brand, that can be enormously beneficial,” he says. ”So getting Erling on board for us was quite a coup.”

According to Euromonitor, the luggage industry was valued at more than $22 billion in 2025 and is forecast to continue growing, surpassing $23.5 billion by the end of 2027. The sector has been partly fueled by a post-pandemic boom, with functional suitcases now becoming an extension of personal style for many consumers. As it moves beyond the action sports world, this hotly contested industry is where Db hopes to succeed by positioning itself as the luggage choice for the creative industries.

The next step in this realignment is the launch of aluminum suitcases, the latest release for Db in a campaign fronted by Haaland. Collier describes this launch as “the next quantum leap in product” for Db, placing the brand firmly at the luxury end of the luggage world, ready to take on some of the established players. As Collier says, it’s a sign of how far Db has come. “Going from designing bags and backpacks in a student room to making $1000 suitcases is quite a journey.”