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Ex-quant trader banks $20m for tech-heavy workout start-up

Jessica Sier
Jessica SierJournalist

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High frequency trader Jon Gregory has swapped stock-screens for workout screens, banking $US15 million ($20.2 million) for his 40-person AI-powered personal training start-up as it gears up for US expansion.

Vitruvian founder Jon Gregory has banked $US15 million for his strength and fitness start-up.  Trevor Collens

Backed by Larsen Ventures and Ten13, Perth-based Vitruvian plans to use the fresh capital to double down on hiring and tackle the lengthy supply chain delays plaguing all hardware companies the world over.

“When you’re doing hardware, software, and production as well, that soaks up a lot of capital,” Mr Gregory said.

“But the good thing about difficult things with many moving parts is you’re building a moat.”

Vitruvian was born out of the gym at the back of Mr Gregory’s high frequency trading firm, which he ran for several years with a few colleagues in Perth.

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“We had a gym at the back of the room for when the markets were quiet,” he remembers.

“And it just seemed incongruous that we were doing cutting-edge trading on one side of the room, and we were just pushing metal around on the other side.

“I thought surely there must be a way to use a bit of physics to do resistance training that’s full of data and algorithms to give you the best workout.”

Mr Gregory took his degree in applied physics, and over the next eight to 10 years developed a prototype he showed an angel investor in 2016.

“It’s amazing he didn’t run for the hills,” Mr Gregory said of the machine that was the size of a room, made of a massive frame with motors, pulleys and screens everywhere.

“It looked like some kind of torture device.”

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By 2018, the angel investor tipped in $100,000 and Mr Gregory tipped in $100,000 and Vitruvian was born.

He raised again and again, and by the time the product was getting closer to customer hands in 2020, COVID-19 hit and with it came an explosion in in-home fitness equipment demand.

“We could have sold a million in a day,” Mr Gregory said. “We were a bit like bunnies in the headlights though because we were still working out how to make the product, and we didn’t want to annoy customers, or be seen as a scam.”

Vitruvian managed to run its pre-sale test campaign amidst the frenzied fitness market, and bedded down its design engineering, design management and software engineering capabilities in Australia, and set up its manufacturing facilities in Asia.

The first generation V-Form product launched in November 2020, with the second-generation Trainer+ released a year later in 2021.

While customers have lapped up the AI-powered exercise platforms that retail for around $4,000 each, plus trainer memberships, the biggest challenge for Vitruvian is to increase production volume.

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“Traditional software or SaaS start-up costs are generally developer bums on seats,” Mr Gregory said. “But our hardware plus software business has a lot more moving parts.”

The company’s expansion into the United States remains its overarching goal at the moment, and is what piqued the interest of lead investors Larsen Ventures.

“[Vitruvian] brings intelligence into the fitness market not yet seen before at a time when a growing number of consumers are demanding smarter, technology led solutions to help them train more efficiently and effectively wherever they may be,” Andrew Larsen, investment director at Larsen Ventures, said.

“We see immense market opportunity globally and particularly here in Asia Pacific and throughout North America.”

Jessica Sier writes on technology, internet culture, cryptocurrencies and software from our Sydney newsroom. She has previously covered global capital markets and economics. Connect with Jessica on Twitter. Email Jessica at jessica.sier@afr.com

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