Pivot: Your Workout Re-envisioned
I’ve been passionate about fitness for a long time. Through my years of being a founder, an operator, and now a venture investor, I’ve always made time for personal fitness and I’ve pretty much tried it all. In the past decade, we’ve seen an explosion in boutique fitness with the rise of Orange Theory, Barry’s, and Soul Cycle amongst others, which now comprise of one-third ($10B) of the $30B US fitness market. Despite this rapid growth, we still haven’t quite figured out how to provide fitness coaching that is both personalized and accessible. Attending a fitness class means scheduling your session ahead of time, driving to the location and finding parking (I would take scooter!), and paying upwards of $30 per session ($100+ per session for personal training).
Given the inconvenience and high price point, I often wonder why there haven’t been better at-home fitness solutions. Peloton proved that there is a huge market for at-home spinning, but what about other forms of fitness? It’s difficult to imagine an at-home experience replacing that endorphin inducing session at Barry’s or Orange Theory. Yet, when I tried Pivot for the first time, I was blown away. Here was an experience that captured the magic of being part of a live fitness class, but from the comfort of your own home.
I first met the Pivot founders, Moawia and Josh in 2015 when they were working on Pivot’s B2B gym product. I didn’t invest then, but closely tracked the company given how compelling I found the founders. Moawia and Josh met as computer engineering undergrads at Columbia University. Josh was working in the computer vision lab when he met Moawia, who was also a part-time personal trainer to pay for college (and trained Josh). Moawia was born and grew up in Egypt. As a teenager, he and his family left everything behind to immigrate to the US, even once living in a shelter. With his drive, he made his way to Columbia and then eventually to Silicon Valley to become an entrepreneur. Pivot has been years in the making, having built the world’s largest dataset of tagged workouts — over 1 million sessions — through their partnership with gyms globally. This proprietary dataset combined with Pivot’s 3D sensors and machine learning, is the foundation for Pivot’s technology.
Pivot is more than just a smart hardware device. Pivot’s offering features live & recorded classes from some of the world’s best group fitness trainers, who can provide real-time feedback during your workout as you compete with friends and fellow members. At DCM, we believe what Peloton did for the at-home spin market, Pivot will do for the at-home fitness market. It’s a big, global vision and they’re just getting started. That’s why I’m so excited to be announcing Pivot’s $17M Series A led by DCM, alongside our friends at Founders Fund, Khosla Ventures, Bling Capital, Signal Fire, Y-Combinator, and strategic angels. We can’t wait for you to experience Pivot when they launch later this year.
If you’re passionate about leveraging computer vision & machine learning to change the at-home fitness market, check out Pivot’s Careers Page. If you’re interested in learning more about Pivot’s launch, subscribe here.
