With Covid-19 causing gyms around the country to close intermittently during 2020, the at-home fitness market has gained a great deal of consumer interest.
You know the giants like Peloton and Mirror, but a new startup founded by a Denver entrepreneur has exploded onto the connected fitness scene with a unique design, high-profile investors and a flourishing crowdfunding campaign.
After a decade at the helm of pet product startup Best Bully Sticks, Avrum Elmakis moved to Denver in 2017 in search of his next venture. He began exploring the health and wellness space and fell in love with indoor climbing.
“I felt great about the actual movement itself, but didn’t love the equipment I was offered and felt like there was a tremendous opportunity to build a business,” he told Colorado Inno.
He dove deeper into the into the space and by 2019 he launched CLMBR, an ergonomic and innovative vertical climbing machine.
CLMBR offers an efficient, full-body, low-impact climbing workout that burns up to 60% more calories than cycling, rowing and running, the company said. It's also the first vertical climber to feature a large-format touch display with on-demand, instructor-led classes. For Elmakis, CLMBR harkens back to the initial form of human movement to create a unique workout opportunity.
“When we think of humanity, we are all born and we all crawl. Crawling is the most efficient primal movement that we all share,” he said. “We stood that in an upright position at a 75-degree angle. In our opinion, it’s the most effective, safest and efficient workout you can do.”
Elmakis added that CLMBR offers less impact than a traditional treadmill and more structured form when compared to riding a stationary bike.
The company’s companion app provides on-demand climbing classes and displays metrics to maximize the user's experience, including the vertical feet they have climbed and the workout targets they have reached.
Despite production slowdowns caused by the pandemic, CLMBR is approaching widescale production and has launched a crowdfunding campaign to attract early adopters.
The company’s Indiegogo project has raised nearly $850,000 in funding from 350 backers, smashing CLMBR’s $100,000 goal with 22 days still remaining. The machine costs $2,000 at the current crowdfunding tier, compared to the expected $5,000 cost upon release, and includes six months of classes. After that trial period, a subscription costs $39 per month.
While CLMBR is developing products for the consumer and B2B space, Elmakis said the pandemic has certainly benefited any company in the at-home connected fitness space.
“By virtue of everybody being at home and working out at home much more, there’s certainly been increased interest,” he said, adding that the success of the crowdfunding campaign is additional proof of that.
CLMBR has also made noise in the industry due to its list of high-profile investors, including musicians Jay-Z and Pitbull, tennis champion Novak Djokovic and YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley.
Elmakis said these connections came from his network and that of his board and represent actual investors in the company, not just paid sponsors.
“What we’ve done is created an investor population of people that authentically believe and use this modality,” he said.
The company hasn’t taken much traditional capital at this point, but they may change in the future as they scale up from their current 16 full-time employees.
While his previous startup experience was in an entirely different industry, Elmakis said he’s leaned on his time at Best Bully Sticks to guide CLMBR through these early stages.
“I think having done it before really helped me understand what mistakes to avoid,” he said.
