INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
The nearly seven-year-old, New York-based fitness subscription app ClassPass is reportedly trying to raise $285 million in a new funding
round that would push its valuation to more than $1 billion.
The company will issue 22.7 million Series E shares as part of the funding
round, according to a securities filing obtained by Reuters from analytics firm Lagniappe Labs.
We&ve reached out to its press office for
more information.
According to TC sources, ClassPass has been in fundraising mode since at least early fall.
The company began life as a way
for people to book classes across different fitness studios but has more recently been pushing a corporate business that sees it adding
ClassPass to employee benefit packages.
It is right now valued at $536.4 million, according to Reuters, which cites the Prime Unicorn Index
Its backers include the Singapore sovereign wealth fund Temasek and Alphabet, along with General Catalyst, Thrive Capital and Acequia
Capital.
To date, the company has raised roughly $240 million from investors altogether, according to Crunchbase
It closed its most recent round of funding, an $85 million Series D round, in July 2018.
ClassPass was founded by Payal Kadakia, who is now
the company executive chairman
She stepped aside in 2017 to make room for Fritz Lanman, the company former executive chairman and co-operator and now CEO.
Lanman
acknowledged in an interview with Fortune earlier this year that ClassPass has endured some ups and downs in its time
Though it originally charged $99 per month for an unlimited number of fitness classes in New York, it was forced to raise prices before more
recently instituting fluctuating class prices based on demand (and the availability of classes) of particular studios
The end result: Customers currently pay between $9 and $199 per month for credits that can be spent on classes.
As for its corporate
memberships, it currently promises not just classes and a way to customize programs for employees but also streaming audio and video
The last owes to an investment that ClassPass made in a broadcast studio, from which it built a library of on-demand video workouts
TC covered that development back in 2018.
