“Our goal is to help millions of people stay healthy while having fun.” So three young entrepreneurs, Giovanni Ciferri, Stefano Manzoni and Stefano Cortese, at the beginning of 2020 launched Buddyfit, a platform for home fitness that in two years has conquered customers, investors and great partners, such as Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Diletta Leotta. The startup has just announced a new capital increase of over 10 million euros.
Leading the round is the Azimut Digitech Fund, followed by Cairo Communications and RCS MediaGroup. Gellify as advisor. Italian entrepreneurs and family offices also participated in the operation.
The funds will be used to support the international growth of the startup, which already arrived on the Spanish market in September 2021, to develop new services. And to expand the team. More than 50 people are scheduled to be hired by the end of 2023.
Helping others keep fit while having fun. “It is a mission that fills us with pride and motivates us every day, also seen as in Western countries as individual wealth increases – absurdly – the rate of obesity and physical inactivity has grown over time” explains Ciferri, CEO and co -founder of Buddyfit.
“We started with fitness, but we have always had in mind to expand to other segments with the aim of becoming the reference service in the wellness field”.
The platform allows users to train where and when they want, with targeted goals and more than 600 classes per month. “Just as in work people have become accustomed to combining smart working with the office, marrying the concept of flexibility to fitness, so too has Buddyfit made it possible, with people who sometimes train outside and at other times from home” .
In the first two years, the company grew fast. Last year it closed a 5 million round. The three co-founders were immediately joined by Attilio Mazzilli, Orrick’s partner and investor, and numerous digital entrepreneurs. Several companies have decided to include Buddyfit in their welfare programs. The platform (first in Italy for the number of users and downloads) has reached hundreds of thousands of people, also thanks to the brand ambassadors Ibrahimovic and Leotta.
The growth of online fitness
The home fitness sector, already growing before 2020, has seen a further boom in the past two years. According to data from the American College of Sports Medicine, online training has risen from the 26th position in 2020 to the first in 2021 among the international fitness trends. It is a market that is worth over 11 billion euros and, according to forecasts, will continue to grow. In the United States, for example, 70% of people who exercise said in a McKinsey survey that their use of online fitness platforms will increase in 2022.
