After a launch from stealth earlier this year, Denver’s Exer Labs is back with a new product and funding to fuel its growth.
The fitness startup that uses its edge-based AI and computer vision platform to power motion coaching apps raised an additional $2 million in seed funding, bringing its total raised to $4.5 million.
Investors in the latest round include GGV, Jerry Yang's AME Cloud Ventures, Morado Ventures, Range VC, Service Provider Capital, Shatter Fund, MyFitnessPal co-founders Mike and Albert Lee, and existing investors Signia Venture Partners and former Zynga COO, David Ko.
Exer officially launched from stealth in May with its first app, the Perfect Plank trainer on the App Store and on Product Hunt.
The mobile application identifies 18 to 20 key areas on the body to ensure you’re doing a plank with correct form. With real-time feedback, the AI can give you tips on how to improve your form for the exercise.
There is no additional hardware required, as your phone’s camera is the only thing needed and user data stays on the phone and nothing gets sent to the cloud.
In conjunction with the funding, Exer also launched Exer Studio, a Mac app that delivers a Peloton-style leaderboard and workout stats to any virtual workout.
As workout studios and trainers were greatly impacted by Covid-19 shutdowns, Exer saw an opportunity to step-in and enhance the virtual fitness experience.
“This is the only way that they’re making money through these virtual classes, the studios or the trainers themselves,” co-founder and CEO Zaw Thet. “We set out in June to take the same platform we have under the surface for Plank, but make it work for these virtual workouts.”
Studio gives users three scores during their workout to track progress: total output, a number that tracks closely to calories burned, power zone, a real-time percentage reflecting current effort level, and a rank of the class’ leaderboard.
For fitness coaches, Studio offers an opportunity to deliver better feedback and more engagement during their video streamed workouts, on any platform like Zoom or Instagram Live.
The app has been in private testing over the summer with coaches and studios in San Francisco, Denver and New York, and is now available via a waitlist to coaches and fitness enthusiasts. The product is free for users and currently free to coaches during the beta testing stage.
“We always thought about ourselves as mobile first, but we had always had ambitions and it was on the roadmap to go across multiple channels,” Thet said. “This just got massively accelerated because all of these people got moved over to doing virtual fitness classes.”
With the new product and funding, Exer is looking to scale its Denver-based team from the 12 current full-time employees to 20 or 25 in the near future, Thet said.
