Are you ready to cancel your gym membership? The latest trend in fitness is VR and FitXR is one of the trailblazers that is combining the best of a high-cardio boxing workout with the engaging graphics of a video game. This London-based startup is has created a suite of engaging workouts, with over 50K members and memberships are rapidly growing.
London TechWatch sat down with cofounder Sam Cole to learn about the rise of fitness and tech and the future of your “at-home-workout” as well the company’s future plans and latest round of funding.
Who were your investors and how much did you raise?
We raised $1.25M in Seed funding from venture firms Boost VC, Maveron, and TenOneTen, as well as private sources.
Tell us about your product or service FitXR offers.
Our first product, BoxVR, is a boxing-inspired, gamified fitness app.
What inspired you to start FitXR?
We were really interested in how virtual and augmented reality headsets could deliver a completely immersive fitness experience that was so engaging you forgot you were exercising.
How is FitXR different?
The immersive, gamified content based directly on structured fitness programs by professional fitness instructors, all in an accessible at-home product, makes BoxVR completely unique.
Do people actually burn the same amount of calories when doing cardio immersive fitness vs. traditional cardio fitness classes?
This is something we are looking to independently verify but the actions performed are very similar to a shadow-boxing fitness class. We know that our 50K existing users spend an average of 27 minutes per session, which is comparable to a traditional cardio class. Perhaps most importantly, we’re building experiences which appeal to almost everyone, including a huge number of people to whom traditional cardio fitness classes don’t appeal. Getting people who currently do not exercise to begin exercising and stick with it is a big part of the goal.
What marketis FitXR targeting and how big is it?
The at-home fitness market. Equipment sales alone for at-home fitness are forecast to grow to $14B by 2024.
What’s your business model?
We currently charge a fixed price of $20 per download
What was the funding process like?
We raised a pre-seed round with BoostVC in August 2017 and then began fundraising for our seed round in the summer of 2018.
What are the biggest challenges that you faced while raising capital?
The biggest challenge was meeting investors that shared our vision about when and how VR/AR is going to scale.
What factors about your business led your investors to write the check?
We built a great relationship with BoostVC after they led our pre-seed and they were impressed enough by our progress to go onto lead our seed. BoostVC have done more VR investments than anyone else, so they know the space well.
We built a great relationship with BoostVC after they led our pre-seed and they were impressed enough by our progress to go onto lead our seed. BoostVC have done more VR investments than anyone else, so they know the space well.
What are the milestones you plan to achieve in the next six months?
At the moment we are working hard to bring BoxVR to as many platforms as possible.
What advice can you offer companies in London that do not have a fresh injection of capital in the bank?
I can only speak about our experience, but we benefited from a) having a product in beta that had early customers and engagement, and b) meeting with a wide range of investors in both the US and UK.
Where do you see the company going now over the near term?
We want to be the dominant producer of immersive fitness content.
What’s your favorite outdoor activity in London?
Cycling.
