12 Jan 2021
Smart kettlebell JaxJox looks to make splash in 2021 after securing 'significant' funding
BY Tom Walker
Fitness tech firm JaxJox is looking to carve itself a share of the at-home fitness market during 2021, having secured significant investment in 2020.
Its connected home fitness solution, InteractiveStudio, will be marketed as the first home gym to combine connected, strength-training equipment with live and on-demand content.
The system offers the equivalent of six kettlebells and 15 dumbbells, providing a "complete gym" with 145 lbs of adjustable weight, a smart push up device and a digital, vibrating foam roller.
Fitted with a huge, 43-inch capacitive touchscreen TV, the training station has four, smart connected products, with automatic adjustability.
Users will be able to track their own performance using artificial intelligence – and in real time – during classes.
The equipment also uses a proprietary machine learning algorithm to calculate the user's Fitness IQ score. The score keeps users informed on overall progress toward fitness goals and can also provide personal workout recommendations.
In October 2020, JaxJox secured US$10m funding, which included investments from Dowgate Capital and entrepreneur Nigel Wray, bring the total funding raised to date to US$17m.
JaxJox founder and CEO Stephen Owusu said: "When developing the InteractiveStudio it was important for us to think about all the friction points a user experiences with home gym equipment.
"A few years ago, there were no in-home fitness solutions that fit into every lifestyle. There were in-home solutions for cardio and strength but nothing that combined the two in one compact unit.
"When we created JaxJox we set out to reimagine free-weight equipment like dumbbells and kettlebells and create technology that was built into the products to track a user's performance during a workout, giving them the freedom to workout anywhere.
"We believe that, for users, tracking power generated while lifting will become as important as tracking your heart rate while running."
The at-home fitness market grew exponentially in 2020, as gyms were forced to close and people invested in home exercise equipment and switched their focus on digital fitness offerings.
One of the market leaders, Peloton, saw its stock soare more than 400 per cent during 2020 – shares in the company rose from a low of US$19 in March 2020 to the current US$159 (Friday 7 January 2021).
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