San Francisco fitness coaching app Future has raised $75 million to expand services and build a user base.
The $149-per-month service connects users with a personal fitness coach, designs weekly workout routines and monitors analytics via the customer’s Apple Watch. The company connects customers with professional trainers, some who have worked directly with professional athletes.
The Series C brings the company's total funding to $110 million. The round was led by SC.Holdings and Trustbridge Partners. Kleiner Perkins and a slew of celebrities also participated, including actress Kate Hudson, actor Oliver Hudson, National Football League defensive end J.J. Watt and golf major champion Rory McIlroy.
“The next big trend across health and wellness will be one-on-one coaching,” said Future co-founder and CEO Rishi Mandal. “That is, connecting people with a support system of experts who can make it easier to live a healthy life. My co-founder, Justin Santamaria, led engineering on FaceTime and iMessage at Apple. Together, we've realized that the best way to have an expert guiding you every day is through your phone.”
He says what differentiates the app from its competitors is that Future employs full-time trainers instead of offering a marketplace for gig-worker personal trainers. Mandal declined to state exactly how many trainers the company has on staff but says it employs more trainers than the NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL combined, and is the largest employer of fitness trainers in the U.S. behind the U.S. military.
“The other thing that's very different about Future is that it's not Zoom-based training. You're not dialing into sessions with a coach,” he said. “Instead, your coach designs a custom training plan for you each week, and the Future app guides you through it. Your coach will even factor in activities you already love, like riding a Peloton or running outside.”
Through an Apple Watch, coaches can monitor heart rate, steps and other factors during the exercise sessions to track progress and keep its users accountable. The coaches can then adapt their workout plans based on the data coming out of the watch.
“Accountability is what's missing from apps that contain set training plans or pieces of exercise equipment,” Mandal said.
An earlier version of this story spelled Rishi Mandal's last name as Mandel in one instance.
