Memberships of gyms are rising in many countries, especially in the U.K. Last year’s State of the UK Fitness Industry Report found that for the first time ever, gym member numbers exceeded nine million and that one in every seven people in the U.K. is a member of a gym.
As memberships have risen, an increasing number of companies have jumped into this space to provide active adults with gamified experiences, such as Zombies, Run!, which has a community of over four million runners. WeFitter is another example of such a company aiming to break into this space, by offering rewards to people who exercise.
It has two versions to its platform. One is for individuals to use, which is free on iOS and Android. For the free version, a user just needs to download the app and from there can connect it to a fitness app of their choosing. This is because WeFitter does not measure fitness performance itself, but instead it works in partnership with over 20 apps and activity tracking devices from Fitbit to Nike+ to Strava to record this data. Once fully connected, at the end of a training session, it converts a user’s effort into points for rewards. In terms of the rewards, it has been reported that the company has agreements in place with gyms and online retailers. The founders say to date that they’ve helped over 50,000 people to improve their fitness.
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The second offering is an enterprise-level product that is available to companies and gym clubs. In this version, it aggregates real-time data from multiple health and fitness apps to provide an overview of an employee fitness and health level. With this version, WeFitter charges a set monthly rate based on how many users there are.
One of its enterprise-level clients is PhoneHouse, a company which sells cellphones both in-store and online. In a video of their partnership, employees were challenged to reach nearly 25 miles in two months to support a social cause. In this campaign, over 1,500 employees took part and the WeFitter says that it helped Phone House reduce the level of sedentary employees at the company by 20 percent.
Most recently it has been reported that the company is also entering the American and Finnish fitness markets.
The startup, based in Barcelona, Spain, has already secured a number of partnerships including with the Public Health Agency (ASPCAT) of the Catalonia region in the country and Life Fitness, which manufactures exercise machines. In addition to this, WeFitter has a prominent partnership with Anytime Fitness, to offer to the gym’s members “Anytime Fitness Challenges.” Those with memberships can take part in challenges and they are ranked according to each specific challenge, while clubs as a whole are also ranked.
Previous to this, in 2015 it had secured $291,000 in funding from Wellness Holding, owner of TechnoGym, a manufacturer of fitness equipment based in Italy. It was also one of five finalists in the iSportForum funding event last year where Carlos Costa, manager of Rafael Nadal, was part of the jury for selecting the winning company.