Malbon Golf is owned by founders Stephen and Erica Malbon, the husband-and-wife team who started the brand in Los Angeles in 2017. The brand remains privately held with significant outside investment, including a $33 million funding round led by Anthos Capital that closed in 2025. Stephen and Erica retain creative and operational leadership, but they brought in professional executives to handle day-to-day operations as the business has scaled toward roughly $200 million in annual revenue.
The leadership team now includes Aaron Heiser as CEO, Rebecca Jury as chief product officer, and Pierre Martin as chief marketing officer. All three came from Nike, which has become a recruiting pattern for Malbon as the brand has grown beyond the founder-led startup stage. Stephen Malbon describes the team additions as a way for him and Erica to focus more on creative direction and brand strategy while professional operators handle execution.
The Founding Story
Stephen and Erica met in Los Angeles around 2008 through a mutual friend. Stephen had spent his career in fashion and underground media, including founding the cult magazine Frank151 and working in adjacent corners of streetwear and skate culture. Erica had co-founded The Now, a boutique massage business. They got married, had kids, and at some point in his mid-thirties Stephen got pulled back into golf for the third time in his life. The first addiction had been as a 12-year-old caddy in Virginia Beach. The second was as a college kid working a club in Atlanta. The third hit when he was 33 and living in Los Angeles. That third one stuck.
In 2017, Stephen and Erica opened a small concept store on Fairfax Avenue in Los Angeles, the famous streetwear stretch. The store sold golf apparel that did not look like other golf apparel. The premise was simple: most golf clothing is designed for the country club aesthetic of 1985. Stephen and Erica thought there was a customer who wanted to play golf and look like someone who lives in 2017 Los Angeles. The store became the brand. Within a few years, Malbon had locations in New York, Miami, Carmel-by-the-Sea, Seoul, and Manila.
Strategic Partners and Major Investors
The $33 million Anthos Capital round in 2025 was the largest formal investment in the company to date. Anthos is a Los Angeles-based growth equity firm with a portfolio that includes American Giant, Bombas, and several other consumer brands. The capital is being used to fund international expansion, particularly into China, and to extend the brand beyond golf into adjacent categories like Malbon Golf and Hunt Club, Malbon Run Clubs, and Malbon Golf and Tackle. The strategy is to capture customers who care about more than one of these activities and want a single brand that speaks to all of them.
The DORMIED Take
Malbon's ownership story is more interesting than the typical apparel brand acquisition narrative because the founders still own the creative direction. Most golf apparel brands that hit this scale get acquired by a parent like Acushnet, Callaway, or a private equity firm. The founder usually gets a check and a transition period, then leaves. Stephen and Erica Malbon took the Anthos capital instead. They kept control of the brand. That decision is what allows the brand voice to stay specific and what protects against the dilution that often happens when streetwear brands sell to larger owners.
Whether that holds at $400 million in revenue is the open question. The brand is still in growth mode, and the next funding event or potential acquisition could change the structure. For now: founder-owned, Anthos-backed, professionally run, growing fast. That combination is rare in golf apparel, and it is most of what makes Malbon Malbon.
