Celebrities investing in startups is nothing new.
However, health startup Therabody recently took it to extreme levels when it announced a funding round with 100+ sports and media personalities, including Jay-Z, Maria Sharapova, James Harden, and Rihanna.
The startup’s main product is the Theragun. To be honest, it doesn’t really look like a gun, but its percussion technology purportedly creates a portable masseuse for recovery.
The valuation is not public…
But Joe Pompliano, who writes the sports business newsletter Huddle Up, highlights some strong numbers from Therabody:
- A 3x increase in revenue YoY
- 250+ active or pending patents
- A 250x increase in retail distribution (40 stores in 2019 → 10k in 2021)
Therabody has also inked multiyear agreements with billion-dollar European soccer giants like Real Madrid and Paris-Saint Germain.
The opportunity: Interconnection
Pompliano notes that the true financial upside of this market is in “the ability to interconnect… wellness tracking applications and recovery technology like percussion massage guns and dynamic air compression boots.”
While you may not be able to mimic Kevin Durant on the court, you can certainly recover like him… if that pulsing action does deliver the goods.
