With four million visitors last month, it’s safe to say that NYC-based Gympass is striding through the year. The corporate well-being platform reported several client usages above pre-COVID-19 levels in May, and double-digit subscriber growth month-over-month.
Coming off this record growth, Gympass announced it raised a $220 million funding round on Tuesday. Gympass, which aims to make well-being universal, is a platform that works with corporations such as McDonald’s, Unilever and Santander to provide their employees access to gyms, studios, therapy sessions and more as a workplace benefit.
This latest funding round valued Gympass at $2.2 billion — more than double its valuation in 2019 when the company first hit unicorn status.
“We’ve already seen a surge in gym and studio visits as countries begin to open up, and we fully expect even greater momentum as people head back to the office,” Cesar Carvalho, Gympass CEO and co-founder, said in a statement.
This fresh capital will be used to further invest in the U.S. market and for product innovation. Gympass plans to use AI to recommend additional meditation, physical workouts or nutrition plans that complement well-being activities someone is already doing, Carvalho told Built In.
Gympass currently has 1,100 employees worldwide, with 200 in the U.S. The company plans to hire 500 additional employees, including product and engineering roles, in the “near future” with the majority located in the U.S., Carvalho said. In the meantime, Gympass is actively hiring for several sales and marketing positions in NYC.
Founded in June of 2012, Gympass’ platform offers access to fitness studios and gyms, on-demand classes, personal trainers, meditation and weekly one-on-one therapy sessions. The company added nutrition and meditation to its platform at the end of 2019 and now works with F45, SoulCycle, Calm, LifeSum and Barry’s, among others. Gympass serves 3,000 clients in 10 countries with approximately 1,000 companies joining within the last year and a half, Carvalho said.
“The pandemic made companies realize they need to invest in their employees,” Carvalho said. “I think once people had to work from home or had to live with the challenges that COVID imposed, I think companies realized they have to be more of a protagonist on this [well-being] story.”
Softbank, General Atlantic, Kaszek, Valor Capital Group and Moore Strategic Ventures participated in the recent funding round.
