Fitness App Future Secures $8.5M Series A to Expand 1-on-1 Virtual Coaching Platform

VCBeat (WeChat Official Account: vcbeat) has learned that on May 23, fitness app company Future announced the completion of an $8.5 million Series A financing round. The round was led by Kleiner Perkins, with participation from Khosla Ventures, Caffeinated Capital, Founders Fund, Abstract Ventures, and Mike Krieger. Mamoon Hamid, a partner at Kleiner Perkins, will join Future’s board of directors.

Currently, Future has raised a total of $11.5 million in funding. The company will use this new capital to expand into strategic markets, scale its roster of contracted coaches, and develop key business partnerships to enhance the user experience.

Future was founded in 2017 in San Francisco, California, by a team of trainers and engineers with prior experience at Apple, Nike, Fitbit, Google, and the NBA. The company’s flagship application, Future, is a fitness app that leverages the internet to pair users with remote personal trainers for one-on-one online fitness coaching.

Although having a coach is a key factor in fitness success, 99% of Americans cannot afford the $50,000–$150,000 annual cost of offline fitness training. With Future, users can stay connected with their online personal trainers and work out anytime, anywhere. The software operates on a subscription model, charging $150 per month. If users are dissatisfied with the service after the one-month trial period, they can request a full refund.

Personal trainers on the Future platform include former professional athletes and veterans of major sports. Each personal trainer has received formal education in exercise science and is certified by the platform. Trainers customize fitness plans based on members’ individual habits and needs, monitor their daily progress, and provide immediate feedback and encouragement. Members can access their weekly workout plans and personalized nutrition information at any time.

Future members exchange thousands of messages with their personal trainers annually. Through the platform’s two-way communication features, Future helps users establish long-term training relationships with their personal trainers, enabling them to continuously manage various aspects of daily health, including diet, sleep, and stress.

Rishi Mandal, Co-Founder and CEO of Future, stated, “Each year, 125 million Americans seek to improve their overall health, yet nearly 80% abandon their daily exercise routines within three months. Future provides ongoing fitness support and guidance to help the majority of people stay accountable and achieve their personal health goals.”

Kleiner Perkins, founded in 1972, is a venture capital firm based in Silicon Valley, USA. It was an early investor in many prominent companies, including Amazon, AOL, Compaq, Electronic Arts, Google, Intuit, Macromedia, Netscape, Segway, and Sun Microsystems. Currently, the firm manages 20 venture capital funds and four growth funds, having invested $10 billion in hundreds of companies.

Khosla Ventures is a venture capital firm founded in 2004 by Vinod Khosla, co-founder of Sun Microsystems. The firm focuses on investing in sectors such as the internet, computing, mobile and silicon technologies, and clean technology.

Caffeinated Capital is an early-stage venture capital firm based in San Francisco, California. Founded by Raymond Tonsing, the firm typically partners with founders at the inception stage and invests throughout the company’s lifecycle. The firm primarily focuses on sectors such as financial services, enterprise software, digital health, and cryptocurrency.

Founders Fund is a venture capital firm established in 2005 and headquartered in San Francisco, California. The company’s investment sectors include science and engineering, consumer internet, biotechnology, aerospace and transportation, energy, fintech, artificial intelligence, advanced computing, robotics, and healthcare.

Abstract Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm founded in 2016 and headquartered in San Francisco, California.

Mike Krieger is the CTO and co-founder of Instagram, holding a master’s degree in Symbolic Systems from Stanford University. Prior to co-founding Instagram, Mike Krieger served as a user experience designer and front-end engineer at Meebo.

(Compiled by Wang Yi)