WFH

Tempo raises $220M, because home fitness has made itself at home

Snacks / Wednesday, April 14, 2021

YouTube on, mat out, Target mirror up... For many of us, it's the go-to setup for home workouts. Not for Tempo: the AI-powered home gym company just raised a muscular $220M in funding.

  • Tempo Studio: This $2.5K contraption looks like a giant iPhone mixed with a West Elm cabinet — sleek. It includes "over $1K of premium weights" inside (#flex). But when it's off, it looks like furniture.
  • Smart tracking: Tempo captures your movements as you lift and squat through classes, while its AI "coach" gives you instant feedback on-screen.

Equinox is paging you... Home fitness companies were corona-conomy thrivers. Tempo says it grew 10X last year. Mirror, a $1.5K fitness screen that doubles as a mirror, was acquired by Lululemon for a whopping $500M. Peloton's 2020 sales nearly doubled from 2019 (and its stock nearly 6X'd in a year).

  • With vaccines rolling out and gyms reopening, you'd think Tempo's customers would be part way to SoulCycle by now. Some might expect home fitness to shrink.
  • Not VC investors: Tempo isn't the only one raising big $$$. Tonal, another expensive workout screen company, raised $250M just last month.

Work(out)-from-Home is here to stay... At least, in part. People have become conditioned to their home workout routines. Going back to commuting, searching for parking, and sweating in public would be a change of habit. And with restrictions still in place at gyms, many are choosing to sweat from the comfort of their homes. According to a recent McKinsey study, 68% of people who worked out at home during the pandemic plan to stick with it. Venture capital investors seem to believe this, too.

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