ClassPass

ClassPass is an American fitness startup company based in New York City and founded by dancer Payal Kadakia. The company offers a flat-rate monthly subscription service to get access to participating fitness classes in 30+ American cities, as well as in Toronto, Vancouver and London. Sanjeev Sanghavi was the company's cofounding partner—he left in January 2014. Before starting the company, Kadakia worked for Warner Music and is a graduate of MIT.[1][2]

The company was originally called DabbleNYC, then renamed to Classivity. An earlier version of the company's product was intended to sell a better registration system to fitness studios but this did not receive much interest.[3] After participating in the TechStars accelerator, the company switched to offering a package deal where users could pay $49 for ten classes in a year, a model that Kadakia likened to Groupon. Users of the service wanted to use the pass service again so the company switched to offering the 'Passport', a subscription service for $99 a month. The company enforces a cancellation fee of $20 for missing classes.[4]

ClassPass got seed funding of $2 million in March 2014, then attracted $12 million in Series A venture capital funding from entrepreneur Fritz Lanman in September of 2014. In 2015, it closed a $40 million round of Series B funding from General Catalyst and Thrive Capital.[5] The company was valued as being worth more than $200 million according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.[6]

The service has attracted criticism for undercutting the business model of the fitness studios that it relies on, with an article in the New York Times describing it as a "middleman" between consumers and fitness studios, and arguing that a "power imbalance" exists between the studio owners and ClassPass which mirrors the relationship with other digital intermediary services like Amazon.com and Uber.[7] A perhaps unintended consequence of the ClassPass business model is that in Washington, DC, users do not have to pay sales tax for the subscription as they would have to if they were paying directly for classes or memberships at the individual workout studios.[8]

References

  1. ↑ Sheila Marikar (3 November 2014). "How one fitness entrepreneur raised $14 million". Forbes. Retrieved 17 March 2015.
  2. ↑ Anna Maltby (27 January 2015). "This Company Will Get You Into Unlimited Fitness Classes". Fast Company. Retrieved 17 March 2015.
  3. ↑ Alyson Shontell (31 July 2014). "How Getting Mugged And Maced Helped A World-Class Dancer Save Her Struggling Startup". Business Insider. Retrieved 17 March 2015.
  4. ↑ Stephie Plante (20 January 2015). "ClassPass: Is the Fitness World's Latest Obsession Worth $54 Million?". Racked.com. Retrieved 17 March 2015.
  5. ↑ Jordan Crook (15 January 2015). "Classpass Is In Session With $40 Million In Series B". TechCrunch. Retrieved 17 March 2015.
  6. ↑ Yuliya Chernova (12 March 2015). "ClassPass, Valued at More Than $200M, Taps Into Gym Craze". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 17 March 2015.
  7. ↑ Jenna Wortham (9 March 2015). "ClassPass and the Joy and Guilt of the Digital Middleman Economy". New York Times Magazine. Retrieved 17 March 2015.
  8. ↑ Vicky Hallett (7 October 2014). "ClassPass lets you take as many fitness classes as you want all over D.C. for $99 a month". Washington Post. Retrieved 17 March 2015.