Image: WHOOP
Fitness wearable WHOOP raised $200M in new funding, valuing the company at $3.6B.
Japan’s SoftBank led the Series F round. Of note, this investment is a significant increase on the company’s $100M Series E round from October of last year that took WHOOP to a $1.2B valuation.
Unlocking Human Performance
On the Fitt Insider podcast, WHOOP CEO Will Ahmed said his company is on a mission to “unlock human performance”:
“We believe that every individual has an inner potential that you can tap into if you can better understand their body and their behaviors. We’ve built technology across hardware, software, and analytics designed to understand the body and help you improve performance.”
Need-to-know: WHOOP is a wrist-worn fitness tracker and membership. In addition to activity, sleep, and heart rate, WHOOP tracks heart rate variability. With a focus on performance, WHOOP has popularized recovery and strain scoring. While the WHOOP strap is free, the monthly membership is $30.
A step ahead. According to Ahmed, WHOOP stands out from other fitness trackers because it’s “designed to live one step ahead of you.”
“The concept of ‘how ready you are to go today’ is powerful. There are secrets your body is trying to tell you that WHOOP is now able to measure. And WHOOP’s analysis doesn’t always correlate with how you’re actually feeling… the data is better at predicting your level of performance than your own intuition.”
Wearable Wars
Digital health apps and wearables are exploding.
- Growing at a CAGR of 15.2%, the global fitness tracker market is expected to top $92B by 2027.
- Last year, health and fitness apps saw a record 120M downloads in a single quarter.
From Big Tech to innovative upstarts, the wearable wars are heating up.
- Industry veteran Apple Watch owned one-third of the global market in Q1.
- Amazon’s fitness wearable, the Halo Band, leverages machine learning technology that outperforms lab devices.
- Google acquired Fitbit for $2.1B in early 2021. To date, its smartwatch efforts have floundered due to gaps in hardware.
- Facebook will debut its first smartwatch in summer 2022, reportedly featuring detachable cameras and a heart rate monitor.
- Smart ring maker Oura raised $100M at a $800M valuation earlier this year.
Looking ahead: In pursuit of optimal performance, we’ve integrated smartwatches, smart rings, smart glasses, and even glucose monitors into our everyday lives. With millions in funding flowing into this space, we’re moving from fitness to health monitoring as high-performance health takes shape.
