Exclusive: New $3.3M Seed Pumps Up DeltaTrainer’s Platform

DeltaTrainer, a one-on-one remote personal training company, raised $3.3 million in a round of seed funding to boost development of its platform and wearable technology.

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The Pittsburgh-based company was co-founded by Matt Spettel and Gabriel Madonna in 2018 to provide fitness training based on tracking a user’s movements via Apple Watch motion analysis.

“We were working on ideas around wearable technology and how that related to strength training,” CEO Spettel told Crunchbase News. “Wearables are generally good at monitoring heart rate and calories, but not motion data and strength training like range of motion or form. That led to the concept of tools that would empower and enable personal training.”

TenOneTen Ventures led the round, with participation from Alpha Edison and Maven, as well as a group of angel investors. This new funding brings DeltaTrainer’s total funding to just over $4 million, Spettel said.

David Waxman, partner at TenOneTen Ventures, said his firm often invests in enterprise products, but deep down the investors are “data nerds” and like working with engineers-turned-entrepreneurs.

He admits that his first impression of DeltaTrainer was not positive, especially after looking at many other apps and products in the fitness and wellness space. When he got to know the product more, however, he found that there was actually nothing like it. In addition, he said he expects DeltaTrainer to weather consumer behavior changes once most gyms are open again.

“A lot of apps and products out there do varying degrees of encouragement to get people to do their thing,” Waxman said in an interview. “For me and others, the big issue of following through with personal training is accountability. DeltaTrainer managed to create accountability at scale virtually. And, if I do go back to the gym, I can tell my trainer that now I’m at the gym, and he will give more exercises because I have more at my disposal. It is not dependent on where I work out.”

The company’s program was launched in 2020 and uses machine learning to estimate strength and interpret data so that human trainers on staff can personalize workouts. The trainers will even take stock of what equipment a user has available, either at home or if using a gym, and make suggestions.

While personal training can cost up to thousands of dollars, DeltaTrainer is $69 per month for unlimited training and provides the same level of training found at the gym, Spettel said. He intends to use the funding to expand the roster of personal trainers, make hires on the technology side, and for marketing and customer acquisition.

The company is also working on platform updates around recreating the gym experience, as well as building in technology, such as live rep counting.

“In the last six months, we’ve grown to dozens of trainers and have seen 10x growth,” Spettel added. “The main thing we plan to do now is grow our core teams, and we would like to onboard hundreds of trainers over the next year.”

Screenshot courtesy of DeltaTrainer
Illustration: Li-Anne Dias