Consumer Athlete 2.0: 10 VC Deals Riding the Consumer-Athlete Wave

The trend also presents great opportunities for investors, with the sports tech market estimated at >$55 billion and growing at a projected 20% compound annual growth rate through 2030. In this blog, we’ll examine potential opportunity sectors and some of the ventures that have caught our eye.

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FROM LEG WARMERS TO TECH WEARABLES

We’ve come a long way from the ’90s, when consumer fitness tech meant QVC gadgets and aerobics tapes.  Now, affordable hardware and new software tools have enabled amateur athletes worldwide to maximize their athletic performance — while creating massive business opportunities in consumer fitness.

Below, we’ll explore examples in performance wearables, distributed coaching, and fitness communities that epitomize the new frontier of consumer fitness.

Performance Wearables:  Data-Informed & Personalized Training

Since Nike+ brought the appeal of wearables and data to the masses, others have followed with ways to gather kinetic, biometric, and other health data to help athletes reach their goals. In fact, the sensing technology in many wearables has been around for decades. However, designing highly wearable systems that can reliably collect data is a more recent development — as are more advanced, intuitive data dashboards and visualizations.

Whoop: Developed by a member of the Harvard squash team to help athletes recover more effectively, Whoop popularized the measurement of recovery to help optimize performance. The Whoop band records sleep, heart rate, heart rate variability, and respiratory rate to deliver a single ‘Whoop Score’ that reflects an individual’s recovery level. The company has become a massive success with pro and amateur athletes alike and was most recently valued at $3.6 billion.

Oura Ring: Like Whoop, Oura (an AV portfolio company) measures biometric data to supply users with insight into their health. The Oura Ring uses infrared LEDs and can measure heart rate, body temperature, and blood oxygen level. Oura’s technology allows for more frequent sampling than its competitors, giving users more granular data and interesting derivative insights. Another massive consumer health and fitness success, Oura was most recently valued at $2.4 billion.

Epicore Biosystems: An up-and-coming technology (and Alumni Ventures portfolio company), Epicore is the developer of a wearable, microfluidic sensor technology designed to improve health and drive athletic performance. The company’s sensors can non-invasively measure sweat biomarkers, skin health, and physiology in real time, enabling athletes to analyze small droplets of sweat directly from their skin at a low cost. This data can impact how someone trains, hydrates, and recovers. Still in its early stage, Epicore was most recently valued at $55 million.

Distributed Coaching: Scaling a Critical Training Resource

Great coaching can help athletes reach their potential, but its distribution has historically been constrained. New media capabilities and business models have enticed exceptional coaches into more mainstream outlets and allowed consumers to benefit from their knowledge. Today, access to great coaching is no longer a barrier, and as tools like AI evolve, we might see fully customized, elite-level coaching available to consumers.

Tempo: Tempo is an at-home fitness platform intended to improve the quality of workout movement and techniques. The platform uses 3D sensors that can track movement and use that data to provide an effective workout in live and on-demand classes.

Athletes can access real-time reporting about their form, stability, posture, balance, and more from professional trainers — plus recorded classes for strength training and cardio. Tempo was most recently valued at $775 million.

Future: Future connects users with dedicated coaches who provide personalized training plans. What makes Future (an AV portfolio company) distinctive is the caliber of coaches it employs, many with top university or professional team experience. The Future app allows coaches to communicate with their clients at scale, allowing more consumers to gain access to elite training. Future’s most recent valuation was $275 million.

Nex Team: Nex is an AI-enabled coach that uses visual analysis to help athletes improve. For basketball lovers, the company’s most notable product is Homecourt. The app leverages a phone camera to provide guided shooting and dribbling feedback to players. The Homecourt app won multiple design and innovation awards, and the company was last valued at $125 million.

Fitness Communities: Massive Scale Group Training

Social fitness has always been a popular option for consumer athletes. Health clubs formerly housed aerobics and spin classes, while more recently, boutique group fitness businesses like Soul Cycle have become popular. The COVID era put a twist on the trend, with new streaming strategies arising to help facilitate group fitness from the comfort of home. The landscape has grown competitive with the lowering of technological hurdles, but companies can still succeed if they establish loyal communities.

Peloton: Perhaps the most well-known example of the new community fitness paradigm, Peloton came into prevalence during COVID as people sought connected home workouts. The platform does not provide personalized feedback, but allows thousands of users to take high-quality, distributed fitness classes. The company was once valued at over $46 billion before returning to a ~$2 billion valuation today.

Zwift: Zwift is the maker of an interactive fitness platform designed to transform monotonous solo indoor cycling and running workouts into dynamic, social adventures. The company’s platform connects with stationary trainers and playback devices so that cyclists can pedal indoors while immersed in virtual landscapes on the screen and “riding” with friends. Incredibly popular among the more competitive cycling community, Zwift was last valued at $2.6 billion.

Hydrow: For rowers, Hydrow (an AV portfolio company) provides on-demand digital courses that simulate a workout on real rivers with visuals, audio, and instructor-adjustable resistance. Establishing itself as the leader in this fitness niche, Hydrow is currently valued at $790 million.

COOL DOWN

Advances in technology have democratized the availability of elite-level training tools for fitness-loving consumers. Improvements in sensing hardware and the ability to analyze and present data give consumers real-time, pointed feedback on their bodies. Software tools and advances like visual AI enable personalized coaching at scale. And new media strategies coupled with home hardware and activated communities have allowed select companies to build distributed fitness empires.

While most of us never reached our childhood goals of an NBA championship or an Olympic medal, it’s never been more convenient to be a Weekend Warrior or an investor in the consumer fitness sector.

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