SweatPals
Setting the Scene
You’ve become hooked on pickleball, and you’re looking for people to play with. 👟
You search through Facebook groups, but no league is looking for more players.
Fearlessly, you venture to the local courts, but you’re met by pros who are disinterested in playing with a beginner.
Ultimately, you resort to playing one-on-one with a nearby wall. 🥴
Thousands of fitness opportunities exist in every city, but they are often difficult to find and participate in.
This week’s company helps users discover fitness communities and leaders to manage their members.
In a Sentence
SweatPals is a social platform that allows users to discover local fitness communities and leaders to manage their groups.
Discover: Explore events in a social feed, follow communities, connect with other users, and join chats.
Communities: Groups include running clubs, pickleball leagues, yoga classes, and more.
Leaders: Instructors and community managers host events, handle waivers and payments, and work with sponsors.
Bulleted Version:
- SweatPals combines the social features of Instagram with the discovery and event tools of Eventbrite for fitness enthusiasts and community leaders. 🏃🏽
The Basics
- Headquarters: Austin, TX
- Employee Count: 10
- Investors:
Antler, YPO Syndicate, SUM Ventures, Sweater Ventures, Litquidity, Fardad Zabetian, Janine Yoong, Jared Simon
- Funding amount: $1m
- Business model: Transaction fees, revenue share through brand deals, planning a premium subscription
- Early traction: 2,000 communities in Miami, LA, and Austin; 20k total active users; winner of Sweater Venture’s Barnburner competition; brand sponsorships with Lululemon, Barry’s, Brex, and more
Due Diligence
WHAT WE LIKE
🏋🏻♂️ Community-based fitness: Community-based fitness is on the rise as individuals seek in-person workout experiences with others, fitness technology improves, and wellness influencers and instructors gain popularity.
SweatPals is well-positioned to serve the 700k+ fitness communities and coaches by integrating social functionality, event management, and payments.
🤑 Helping communities monetize: By matching fitness communities with brand sponsors, SweatPals will build community retention and attract new clubs.
💪 Strong business model: While most social platforms earn income through advertising, SweatPals builds a sustainable model through payment fees and brand deals.
POTENTIAL RISKS
🏁 Competitor expansion: The company may face competition from club management software or leading social fitness platforms like Strava that could tailor their offerings to fitness communities.
🏠 In-house sponsorships: Many fitness communities and instructors may manage sponsors directly, which could limit SweatPals’ differentiated brand opportunity.
Additionally, the company has limited control over the agreements between sponsors and communities.
🏙 City scaling: SweatPals must onboard enough communities in each new city to obtain a critical mass of users onto another social platform.
Founder Profile
Salar Shahini, CEO: Previously founded Streetlogix and served as the CTO at StreetScan.
Mandi Zhou, CPO: Previously worked as a product designer at WorkJam and Nebula AI.
Comps
GloFox: Backed by Octopus Ventures.
Meetup: Backed by Union Square Ventures, Omidyar Network, and others.
Why SweatPals
By providing a social-first platform for community connection and tools for community leaders to manage their members, SweatPals runs circles around traditional fitness apps and club management platforms. 🏃♀️