May 15, 2024
Brazilian native Bruno Munduruca is the owner and CEO of two of the most premier brands in the Brazilian jiu-jitsu industry.
Bruno’s business was the natural result of his love for the sport of BJJ and his recognition of the lucrative opportunity to supply a rapidly growing population of practitioners with high-quality kimonos and associated gear. In 2008, he launched his e-commerce business – Fighters Market – out of his garage. The business was one of the first to provide a multi-brand online store for the BJJ community. Working tirelessly with his wife Dorothy, he gradually grew the business, his gregarious nature allowing him to make important connections across industry, expanding his visibility into all areas of the BJJ market.
In 2011 Bruno launched his passion project: his own BJJ gi (kimono) and gear brand: Kingz. His vision for the brand was to provide the industry with gear that adhered to a clean, classic aesthetic, and features the absolute best in quality and construction. Today, the brand boasts an extensive product line, including gis, no-gi gear, apparel and sports accessories. Bruno has heavily reinvested the proceeds from the brand back into the community: sponsoring the sport’s biggest events and its most acclaimed athletes, as well as supporting the development of a jiu-jitsu non-profit in Sao Paulo, Brazil, in the memory of one of BJJ’s most loved athletes.
From its humble beginnings in his garage, Bruno has built his business into a veritable empire. Today, Fighters Market and Kingz are housed in a 10,000 square-foot facility in the heart of San Diego, employing 20 full-time employees and approximately 10 independent consultants, and providing salaries to nearly 50 elite athletes to help them pursue their goals. In addition to shipping premium products to hundreds of thousands of customers around the world, with the Kingz brand, Bruno is also the exclusive supplier of academy uniforms to thousands of BJJ academies worldwide.
In his spare time, he trains and competes in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, in which he is a 2nd degree black belt. He and his wife Dorothy have three sons, Ricky, Royce and Connor.
