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A huge well done to the Zwift team and very proud to be a part of such an amazing milestone in their ongoing successes .
Online fitness platform Zwift has secured $US450 million ($625 million) in funding on the back of a boom in virtual fitness driven by the coronavirus pandemic.
"I think like many of the digital businesses, internet businesses, we've benefited from from this pandemic," founder and chief executive Eric Min told The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald. "What was clear was that people crave that social connection and digital was was perfectly fine."
A former competitive cyclist, Mr Min launched Zwift in 2015 to enable users to follow virtual courses on their indoor bikes and treadmills and train and race with an online community.
The startup headquartered in London has 2.5 million accounts registered across 190 countries and Mr Min said Australia was a significant market for it as one of the few territories where Zwift has a team on the ground with an office in Melbourne.
"The Australian market is one of our largest markets," he said. "The Australians for us are such an influential group. They spend a lot of time on Zwift and are pretty active in the community."
The investment in Zwift was lead by global investment firm KKR and accompanied by other new investors Permira, Zone 5 Ventures, Specialized Bicycle Components’ venture capital fund and existing investors including True, Highland Europe, Novator and Causeway Media.
Mr Min said the funds will be used to accelerate the development of Zwift’s core software platform and bring Zwift-designed hardware to market.
"This particular round in particular, it's a sizeable round, it's all about investing in the product because having a great experience just makes everything else that we do so much easier," he said.
