Future raises $24 million Series B round for its 1-on-1 workout coaching app

Future has closed a $24 million Series B for its workout coaching app, led by Trustbridge Partners with the participation of Caffeinated Capital and Kleiner Perkins, according to Techcrunch. 

Future’s $150/month personal training app pairs its users 1-on-1 with one of its elite certified coaches based on users’ needs and goals. The workout coaching app allows users to set a workout with a professional coach in accordance with the intensity of their daily calendar and the places they are in, and uses the health-tracking capabilities of Apple Watch.

Rishi Mandal, CEO of Future, said to Techcrunch that the company’s growth rate has tripled in recent months as thousands of gyms closed their doors. He said shelter-in-place has merely accelerated an ongoing shift towards tech-forward fitness services that can help busy users find time during their day to exercise.

During the pandemic, the interest in health & fitness apps on both mobile and wearable devices has increased dramatically. In March 2020, mobile users have spent more than $59 million on health apps and $36 million on fitness apps. The downloads of those apps increased by 40% in the first months of the pandemic and it continues to increase.

Last month, Zwift had raised a $450 million Series C funding round to “make a seamless ‘at-home gamified fitness’ experience”.

The pandemic has also been an unprecedented opportunity for meditation and mental wellness apps. The popular mental wellness app Calm is looking into raising $150 million in a funding round at $2.2 billion valuation. Another meditation app Meditopia raised $15 million in funding a couple of months ago.