Fitt Insider Debrief: Amazon Launches Halo Fitness, Life Time to Go Public, Diet Tech Cashes in
Welcome to the Fitt Insider Weekly Debrief. Every weekend, we compile the top stories impacting the business of fitness and wellness from the past week.
Here’s what you need to know for October 3, 2021…
- Amazon debuted Halo Fitness and a new wearable
- Health club operator Life Time filed to IPO
- Found emerges from stealth with $32M in funding
Amazon Fitness
From fitness to wearable tech and even nutrition, Amazon continued its healthcare push this week, announcing a number of new products:
- Halo Fitness, a digital workout service
- Halo Nutrition, a personalized meal planner
- Halo View, a wearable device resembling a Fitbit
As we detailed in Issue No. 144, Amazon Prime Health, the tech giant has been making inroads into health, fitness, and healthcare:
2018: Acquired PillPack for $750M
2020: Debuted the Halo Band, its first fitness wearable
2021: Introduced Movement Health and at-home COVID testing
All the while, the company has been advancing Amazon Care, a primary care and telehealth service. After piloting the program internally, Amazon Care has signed “multiple clients,” including Peloton-owned fitness equipment manufacturer Precor.
Wearable & workout wars. From Apple to Google-owned Fitbit and Peloton to WHOOP, the fitness workout and wearable tech wars are getting more intriguing… and much more competitive.
As fitness-focused companies like Peloton and WHOOP build high-performance platforms, tech companies like Apple and Amazon are prioritizing healthcare. Meanwhile, for their part, consumers are left wondering whether or not any of this health tech actually works.
Going Public
Premium fitness operator Life Time Group Holdings filed for an initial public offering. It plans to list on the NYSE under the symbol LTH.
Best known for high-end health clubs in affluent suburbs, today, the brand counts 1.4M members at 150 locations across the US and Canada.
By the numbers:
2019: $30M in net income on $1.9B in revenue
2020: $360M net loss on revenue of $900M
2021: $229M net loss on revenue of $600M (as of June 30)
Back again. This listing would mark Life Time’s return to the public market. The company went private in 2015 as part of a $4B deal between founder Bahram Akradi, Leonard Green & Partners, TPG, and LNK Partners.
Market watch. Life Time’s filing adds to a flurry of fitness-related activity in the public market, including Beachbody, F45 Training, and Xponential Fitness, who went public this summer. Meanwhile, equipment manufacturer iFIT Health & Fitness recently filed to go public, with Echelon, Hydrow, and Tonal reportedly testing the waters as well.
Diet Tech
Found, a weight management startup, launched publically, announcing $32M in funding and the appointment of Bumble COO Sarah Jones Simmer as its new chief executive.
Incubated at Atomic, a prolific venture studio, Found is also backed by GV (formerly Google Ventures) and Define Ventures.
What it is: According to Jack Abraham, co-founder of Found and Atomic managing partner, the company offers “a comprehensive, tailored, and precision-based solution to help anyone looking to lose weight.”
From prescription medication to supplements and health coaching to diet and exercise plans, the Found platform will take a multifaceted approach to weight loss.
Digital weight loss. A mounting crisis, obesity and diabetes are skyrocketing. Eyeing a billion-dollar weight loss market, digital health startups are hoping to alleviate the metabolic health epidemic.
- In April, Virta Health added $133M in funding at a $2B valuation for its diabetes reversal treatment.
- In May, digital weight loss app Noom was valued at $3.7B in a $540M funding round.
- Digital metabolic health company Calibrate landed $100M in Series B funding co-led by Founders Fund and Tiger Global.
Punchline: With over 70% of the population overweight or obese, and 88% of Americans metabolically unhealthy, expect to see more startups taking an “any means necessary” approach to curbing this crisis.