Fran Millar wants to get Rapha back to the forefront of cycling. The company defined how cycling looked in the 2000s, ushering in a new era where cycling kit was closer to fashion than sportswear.
However, over the last decade, it has gone from being one of the few brands – if not the only brand – of its type to one among many, with discerning cyclists able to pick out their apparel from similarly stylish companies such as MAAP and Pas Normal Studios. With that competition, Rapha has lost some of its market share, and now Millar wants the company to reclaim its rightful position.
“We are the originals, we started this. We have a deep credibility and deep authenticity in this sport. I think that is our differentiator,” Millar explains at Rapha’s headquarters in North London, adding that, “We haven’t done a brilliant job over the last couple of years at doubling down on that differentiation.”
Millar joined Rapha as CEO in September 2024. Before arriving at Rapha, Millar was the CEO of Team Ineos Grenadiers and then Belstaff, which she joined in 2020 to turn around from an operating loss of £20 million (it broke even in 2024).
Millar has a similar task on her hands with Rapha, which has repeatedly made headlines for its financial losses, and needs to refind its feet. This led to Millar making one big decision almost immediately after joining Rapha: dropping its seven-year partnership with EF Pro Cycling.
The relationship had “gotten tired”
“When you look at the first year of the EF relationship, and the subsequent four or five years, it really was game-changing,” Millar says. The partnership led to collaborations with the skateboarding brand Palace and the Alt Racing calendar, which saw its athletes taking on races such as Unbound Gravel and Leadville Trail 100 MTB.
Lachlan Morton was responsible for much of the Alternative Calendar’s success, including his Alt Tour in 2022, where he rode the whole Tour de France route, beating the peloton to Paris by five days, and his on-bike exploits, always paired with his off-bike relaxed Aussie demeanour in the Gone Racing YouTube documentary series. But Millar feels that partnership had run its course.
“As a customer and fan of the sport, I felt that relationship had gotten tired,” Millar explains. “For Rapha, we have to be doing things that are disruptive, we have to be doing things that are different. We have to be challenging and pioneering again. Doing what everyone does, in a way that everyone does it, has never been what Rapha was built on.”
The decision to end the partnership with EF Pro Cycling also sees Rapha move out of the WorldTour. But this isn’t something that concerns Millar. “I think multidisciplinary cycling is becoming far more part of the lives of all of our customers,” she says, adding that people would only be able to name the kit sponsor of a few WorldTour teams.
But as one partnership ends, another begins. In October, Rapha revealed it was partnering with USA Cycling, where it will work across new disciplines, such as BMX racing, BMX freestyle, and track cycling, which Millar says will unlock innovation gains.
This is something that was lacking from the EF Pro Cycling relationship. Millar says the skinsuit for the WorldTour team was last tested in 2022: “That’s an anathema to me in terms of having a high-performance suit – that you wouldn't test every year and get it in the wind tunnel to understand what you could be doing to go faster.
“You can't afford to wait two or three years on the track. It’s an environment where every millisecond counts. The relationship between the bike, the body and the air movement is so significant. So working at the absolute bleeding edge of what the track programme is doing, with our fabrics, our textiles, and our development teams is absolutely core to us.”
Broadening Rapha's reach
The partnership with USA Cycling is also an opportunity for Rapha to broaden its reach and customer base. The US is currently Rapha’s third largest market and makes up roughly 20 per cent of its business. Millar is optimistic that the LA 2028 Olympic Games could do for cycling in the US what the 2012 London Games did for cycling in the UK, helping to transform the perception of cycling in the country and getting more people on bikes.
“We wanted to build a broader portfolio that spoke to a new and different demographic of the sport in a way that we haven't done before. This will be sort of one of the pinnacle things that we do,” she says.
Teaming up with USA Cycling is possible due to a renewed belief in Rapha, internally and from its financial backers. “There's a real confidence in Rapha for the first time in a long time,” says Millar. “We’re completely unique in the market in terms of our opportunity to go after stuff that is risky but has higher reward potential – and our backers are absolutely supportive of that.”
The financial confidence in Rapha is something Millar and Rapha’s chief financial officer, Michelle Woolaghan, are determined to make known. The company that ushered in cycling’s new, stylish age yet consequently became a symbol of the sport’s elitism and oh-so-serious side, has been a target in recent years, with its financial losses becoming a focus for detractors.
Rapha’s latest financial results for the period ending January 2025 reveal revenues of £96.2m and a net loss of £15.6m. That’s the eighth consecutive year Rapha has posted a net loss, but Woolaghan says that number is not what the company is focused on.
Instead, Rapha is concerned by its Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortisation (EBITDA). In 2023, Rapha pulled its way back to a positive EBITDA of £900,000, yet that has moved back to -£2.6 million in the latest results due to a reduction in revenue. But Woolaghan says this is due to a “conscious decision” to reduce the level of discounting and promotional sales.
“Within the 2024 numbers, the full price sales held level and what dropped back was promotional or discounted sales. So our gross margin improved across all the channels. But nevertheless, because of that volume drop in the short term, that impacts profitability,” says Woolaghan, explaining that it was something the company’s board agreed upon and Millar agreed with when she came in, for the health of the brand.
“The percentage of our active customers who have bought one of our key products at full price in the last 12 months is increasing, and that's increasing month on month,” Woolgahan explains. “We're kind of coming off the discounting drug, I suppose.”
Why Rapha’s financial losses look so bad
Woolaghan is also keen to explain why Rapha’s financial losses look so bad. Rapha was bought by the grandsons of the Walmart founder Sam Walton, Steuart and Tom Walton, and their firm RZC Investments in 2017. Since then, there has been ongoing amortisation, which is essentially depreciation of goodwill and tangible assets.
“That's about £10 million a year,” says Woolaghan. “So we just have that hit to the profits and losses every single year until we've paid off the kind of purchase price. And so that will continue.” And for how long? “Eight to 10 years.”
Rapha has also implemented an impairment, which has reduced the carrying value – the value of an asset based on its balance sheet – of the company from £168m by £102m. “What that means in practice is when we assess the outlook of what it will take to get back to strong EBITDA and revenue growth,” says Woolaghan.
Millar adds: “The carrying value of the business is important for people who own the business and it's important people have shares in the business. But actually, for our customers and people who are interacting with our business on a daily basis, it shouldn't have any impact at all.”
The next few years are critical for Rapha. It wants to be back to positive EBITDA by 2027 and to be financially self-sufficient in that time. The big focus is to reclaim the high-end of the market and thereby regain the market share it has lost. The LA 2028 Olympics will also be a springboard for Rapha to grow.
Those are big aims, but for Millar they’re underpinned by a simple mission: “We’ve got to get back to being brilliant at what we do.”
