A South Side-based fitness coaching and personal trainer-pairing startup is looking to nearly triple its workforce over the next year thanks in part to its close on a $6.5 million funding round.
The Series A1-defined raise led by San Francisco-based venture capital firm Jackson Square Ventures brings CoPilot's total funding to $16.5 million since its founding in 2019 by CEO Matt Spettel and chief technical officer Gabriel Madonna.
Spettel said the company employs about 75 people currently, of which about 60 people are paid as full-time personal trainers who work one-on-one with CoPilot's customers to tailor individual workout plans, which start at $99 per month.
But Spettel also said CoPilot is nearing the maximum number of people-per-trainer its employees can handle and he envisions boosting its personal trainer payroll figures to about 150 people within the next year to keep up with growing customer demand.
"Definitely some major growth there," Spettel said in relation to personal trainer employment figures while noting that key hires will also be added to the company's engineering team. "I would estimate in 12 months we'll probably be at around 160 to 175 employees, including all the coaches, which is kind of crazy to say out loud but I would have said the same thing about [having] 75 people a few years ago."
Spettel declined to share specific revenue figures at this time but said the company has seen its income and customer count grow "five-fold" since CoPilot raised a $5.5 million Series A round in January 2022.
"You could ask any of our clients and they'll tell you that the experience really feels like you're one of only a small handful of clients that that coach is working with," Spettel said. "When [in reality] these coaches a lot of times are working with a lot of clients at once. And so the technology that we built behind the scenes is a huge part of enabling that."
