CoPilot, a workout app that connects users with remote fitness coaches, raises $6.5 million

Image credits: Co-pilot

Co-pilot, a digital training app that connects users with one-on-one fitness trainers remotely, has raised $6.5 million in Series A-1 funding led by Jackson Square Ventures. The app, which has seen more than 1.5 million workouts completed on the platform, matches users with a trainer who they connect with in order to receive a personalized fitness plan. The idea behind the company is to give users access to a personal trainer for a fraction of the cost of an in-person fitness trainer.

The Pittsburgh-based startup was founded in 2019 by CEO Matt Spettel and CTO Gabriel Madonna. Spettel told TechCrunch in an interview that his personal fitness journey was incorporated into the birth of CoPilot. He says he got into fitness when he was in high school after his best friend and now co-founder Madonna encouraged him to start working out. Spettel says he fell in love with taking care of his body as he embarked on his personal fitness journey. The couple then began tinkering with ideas in the fitness space while Spettel was studying at Carnegie Mellon and Madonna was at MIT.

The duo’s early ideas were quite different from what they are today, as they began by creating wearables and hardware designed to help gym-goers optimize their workouts.

“We built this product and released it to the world and saw what people had to say, and we took notice,” Spettel said. “The problem to solve in fitness isn’t about optimizing an enthusiast’s workout, it’s simply about helping the average person know what to do and, more importantly, helping them to show up and do it. We really focused on this problem, which led us to what CoPilot is today.

Image credits: CoPilot / CoPilot founders Gabriel Madonna and Matt Spettel

Since then, the duo has focused on creating a product that gives users unlimited access to their own personal fitness coach. Spettel says that while access to an in-person personal trainer is great, it’s expensive and requires people to go to an actual gym, which is why CoPilot wants to make personal trainers more accessible. CoPilot’s target demographic is people who have a simple activity base and are aware that exercise is important, but struggle to be consistent and achieve their goals.

CoPilot is available on Android and iOS and the service costs $99 per month.

To get started with the service, users must answer a series of questions about their sporting background, their personality, their motivation and their preferences regarding the specializations of their coach. You are then put in touch with one of the 55 CoPilot coaches. After that, you schedule a 45-minute call with your coach to discuss your goals and the different types of equipment you might have. Spettel notes that you don’t need any equipment, as the trainer will be able to come up with a personalized fitness plan accordingly.

Your trainer will then develop a detailed fitness plan designed to help you achieve your goals. From there, the user begins to do their workout asynchronously. After your first call, you primarily communicate with your coach via chat, but you can also schedule check-in calls if needed. Your trainer doesn’t monitor your workouts; instead, the app guides you through your exercises.

Image credits: Co-pilot

“We used a lot of technology to recreate that experience of having a trainer by your side,” Spettel said. “We have audio prompts that sound exactly like your coach talking to you in real time. Then we have software that we wrote for devices like the Apple Watch so we can look at your actual movement data and give you feedback on things like slowing down or holding your body tighter.

Spettel says CoPilot differentiates itself from other fitness apps by giving users access to a real human being who can understand a user’s different needs and goals, which he says cannot be replaced by AI or chatbots.

As for the new financing, which brings the total capital raised to $16.5 million, the startup plans to use it to expand its team. CoPilot wants to attract talent to its engineering, design and marketing teams. The company also plans to hire more coaches, who work full-time at CoPilot. Furthermore, CoPilot wishes to develop and systematize its growth engine.

Going forward, CoPilot plans to continue investing in its technology that recreates its coaching experience, Spettel says. For example, CoPilot wants to be able to detect more nuanced differences in people’s form as they exercise and be able to count their repetitions. The company also wants to expand its reach beyond strength training and exercise to cover other health and wellness topics, such as nutrition, physical therapy and mental health.