Startups

Tempo Lands $17.5M Series A For AI-Powered Home Workouts

The connected fitness space just keeps growing.

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Tempo is the latest company to join the pack, announcing it raised $17.5 million for its Series A round and will start taking pre-orders for its system, which will start shipping this summer.

Providing live and on-demand strength and high intensity interval training classes, Tempo uses artificial intelligence to make home workouts more like personal training sessions.

The system’s sensors scan users movements and uses machine learning to prepare workouts for users based on their progress, according to a statement from the company. Tempo counts a user’s reps, recommends weights and gives real-time corrections for a user’s technique–key benefits of having a personal trainer without the steep hourly cost.

“The real groundbreaking thing is helping people work out effectively and safely at home,” Tempo CEO Moawia Eldeeb said in an interview with Crunchbase News.  “And to be able to do that you need to train.”

The Tempo system’s predecessor, SmartSpot, was essentially the data collection process for the whole product, Eldeeb said. SmartSpot was in gyms for about three years, capturing more than 1 million sessions to feed Tempo’s AI.

Tempo’s system, like most other tech-enabled home fitness equipment, doesn’t come cheap. The price for the full station is $1,995 and the monthly content subscription is $39.

Connected fitness is a popular space that has received more than a billion dollars in VC funding overall. Peloton leads the pack, as it raised more than $994 million as a private company.

But what sets Tempo apart, Eldeeb said, is the personal training aspect. It’s not just watching a workout on a screen and mirroring the motions–Tempo will correct users if their form is wrong so they perform the moves safely and effectively.

“What’s the difference between having a VHS and dumbbells at home?” Eldeeb said of other connected fitness systems. “You’re packaging it in a nicer-looking design. But it’s the 21st century, it should be groundbreaking.”

During live classes, trainers also have dashboards where they can see how users are performing moves. If, say, 20 percent of the class is doing a move incorrectly, the trainer can alert the whole class.

Tempo pitched 10 investors for the Series A, and many actually came into the company’s office to try out the product, Eldeeb said. The company ended up with eight term sheets, and the investors Tempo ultimately picked were those the company felt were “in it for the long-haul” and had a passion for fitness.

Founders Fund, Khosla Ventures, DCM and Bling Capital are among the company’s investors.

Illustration Credit: Li-Anne Dias

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