Goldman Sachs Leads Keep's $127M Series D Funding to Accelerate Keepland Expansion and AI-Powered Product Development

VCBeat (WeChat: vcbeat) has learned that fitness technology company Keep has completed a $127 million Series D financing round, led by Goldman Sachs, with participation from existing shareholders including Tencent, GGV Capital, Morningside Ventures, and Bertelsmann Asia Investments.

Keep's Historical Financing Status (Data Source: VCBeat Database)

Keep has previously completed five rounds of financing, raising a total of $60 million.

Keep was founded in September 2014, and its first round of financing was completed in November 2014, with Zeihou Capital leading the angel round investment of RMB 3 million, just over a month after the company’s establishment. In the following two years, Keep completed a total of five funding rounds, with participation from well-known venture capital firms such as Bertelsmann Asia Investments, Yintai Capital, and Morningside Ventures.

In 2016 alone, Keep completed two rounds of financing: Series C and Series C+. The most notable was the Series C+ round in August 2016, which raised tens of millions of yuan from Tencent Industrial Win-Win Fund. Following the completion of this Series D financing, Keep became the company with the largest single-round funding amount and the highest valuation in the internet fitness sector.

Keep, founded in 2014, is dedicated to providing users with a one-stop fitness solution encompassing workout instruction, running, cycling, social networking, healthy dietary guidance, and fitness equipment purchases.

According to a report by 36Kr, Keep has accumulated 140 million users and 2.2 billion user data points over the four years since its establishment. This round of financing will be used for AI product research and development, incubation of new business lines, and the continuous enhancement of fitness content.

Initially, Keep created a traffic entry point by offering free courses tailored to fitness enthusiasts, established a fitness community, and launched an e-commerce channel. In 2018, Keep’s strategy gradually shifted from online to offline, with the opening of physical stores.

On March 21, 2018, Keep’s first offline store, Keepland at Beijing Huamao, officially opened for business. Keepland is a diversified sports and fitness space brand created by Keep. In its early stages, the venue primarily leveraged the Keep community to drive online-to-offline traffic.

The First Keepland (Image Source: Keepland Official WeChat)

Furthermore, Keep’s merchandise lineup has expanded from fitness apparel, equipment, and health supplements to include smart hardware such as treadmills. In the smart hardware segment, the Keep Smart Treadmill K1 not only features high-performance hardware but also integrates Keep’s exclusive software content, delivering a more intelligent running experience. Since its launch on March 19, the treadmill has swiftly secured the No. 1 spot on JD.com for “Top-Selling Seller,” “Top-Selling Product,” and “Top-Selling Brand.”

Keepland, the fitness space brand; KeepKit, the smart hardware brand; and KeepUp, the trendy sportswear brand are Keep’s three major sub-brands this year. Compared with other brands in the industry, Keep has fully leveraged its advantages in users, big data, and content.

In terms of AI, Keep can better conduct product development by leveraging the massive user data accumulated across multi-dimensional scenarios, including the Keep App, smart hardware KeepKit, and offline fitness spaces Keepland.

Following the financing, Keep will increase its investment in AI technology, develop a more diverse range of advanced smart hardware products, and attract top industry talent to enhance innovation capabilities, thereby further strengthening its competitive advantages as a sports technology company.

Meanwhile, Keep plans to open more Keepland studios in the future, establishing itself as essential urban fitness infrastructure and integrating exercise into every user’s daily life. This will enable users to access more precise, personalized, and enriched fitness services, while enjoying exclusive virtual fitness coaches and high-quality offline workout experiences at low cost and with high efficiency.