Playpulse Raises $2M Seed Round To Finalize Product and Expand Team
The team at Playpulse have been working for years developing our breakthrough product, the Playpulse ONE, transforming fitness into fun and games for everyone.
Born from a PhD thesis project on how gaming can make working out more fun, the Playpulse One delivers a fully integrated gaming workout experience through our award-winning design, games and streaming capabilities.
While the at-home fitness industry has seen huge growth over the past few years, they have left a lot on the table: 81% of adolescents across the globe are too inactive, and 75% of Americans want to be more active but struggle with motivation. We know from our research that Playpulse helps people who traditionally struggle with motivation by making fitness fun.
Playpulse One improves on the traditional smart bike by adding fun to the fitness experience. High accuracy pedal sensors, console-like game controllers, and a large touchscreen allow you to play video games, watch your favorite streaming service, compete with others, all while gaining the benefits of fitness.
As we continue our journey toward launch, we wanted to raise additional capital to expand the team, finalize the product and grow the content library through partnerships. Crucially, we wanted to partner with someone that would both engage with our vision and help us get there. And that is exactly what we have achieved with the latest round.
We are excited to announce our seed round of US$ 2 million, led by Courtside VC, Initial Capital, and several angel investors with highly relevant backgrounds, including Jamie Brooker and Johan Brand from Kahoot, Jasmine Maietta from Peloton, and Walter Cruttenden from Acorns.
The capital raised will go toward our final tweaks to the product’s design, fine tuning performance, expanding our library of immersive content and game, and recruiting new talent to our fast-growing team.
Courtside Ventures invests in early-stage founders globally across sports, fitness and gaming.
“We believe the next generation of fitness companies are going to target larger audiences and those that don’t find conventional workouts to be appealing. Most importantly, we believe that one of the largest opportunities sits at the intersection of active lifestyle and gaming”, said Deepen Parikh, partner at Courtside VC. “Playpulse has taken their deep expertise and research in exercise gaming to build an incredible product and platform that we believe can transform the fitness industry.”
Initial Capital is an investor in seed and early-stage technology companies with a focus on games, consumer services and technology enablers.
“At the intersection of gaming and wellbeing is Playpulse. We’re excited to partner with Playpulse to support their ambition to help families progress in their fitness journeys at home while playing games. With the sleek format, thoughtful customization, and emphasis on building strength while having fun, it’s a game changer for families interested in results driven fitness", says Mayra Tama, partner at Initial Capital.
We feel very fortunate to have the fine folks from Courtside and Initial Capital with us to make this happen. Over the years we have seen how the Playpulse experience can change people’s lives in a school and gym environment, and are now preparing to bring it to a global arena.
If you are interested in joining us on our journey, please contact us at hello@playpulse.com or visit https://playpulse.com/ for more information.
- Erling Magnus Solheim, CEO, Playpulse