BEAT81, one of Europe’s fastest growing fitness tech companies, has raised a €6.4 million Series A funding round led by EQT Ventures. Tim Dettman, a professional badminton player and former national champion, founded the company in 2017 to help people improve physically and mentally — through a combination of technology and community.
BEAT81 set out to solve two problems: group fitness classes do not personalise to individual needs, and fitness tech does not build strong communities. Both issues decrease motivation and cause training to stagnate.
The program combines high-intensity group training, motivational coaching and heart rate technology. The technology includes a heart rate sensor, which is worn during each workout and shows people how their heart responds to exercise in real-time. Participants see their heart's performance displayed live throughout training and receive personalised results afterwards. Here lies the origin of BEAT81’s name: a person’s optimal training zone is at least 81 percent of their maximum heart rate.
BEAT81 currently has training sessions in four German cities: Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, and Cologne. The new funding will be used to continue building its technology and to expand internationally.
Dettman, who is also the CEO, said, “Our vision is to have thousands of coaches running a BEAT81 business worldwide and leading the largest fitness community globally. With this investment, support and mentorship from the EQT Ventures team, we’re looking forward to scaling and expanding the business.”
Axel Bard Bringéus, investment adviser at EQT Ventures said, “When the EQT Ventures team first met Tim, we were blown away by the metrics. Having actually experienced a BEAT81 session and gotten a feel for the community that BEAT81 had already built, we knew this was something else. The final piece of the puzzle was the grit and huge ambition of the founder and his team — we’re excited to be part of BEAT81’s journey ahead.”
Would you like to write the first comment?
Login to post comments