Fitness tech company The Original Fit Factory has made eight international acquisitions totalling £110 million.
Headquartered in Glasgow, the business was launched in 2016 by fitness industry expert David Weir with two core services: TV.FIT Productions, producer of workout programmes, and TRUCONNECT, a global fitness and wellbeing community app.
Now under the banner of The Original Fit Factory, the company says the acquisitions of the wellness and lifestyle brands are intended to ‘build an unrivalled wellness ecosystem’.
They are expected to boost projected revenue in 2022/23 to more than £83m.
The latest deal, for Wolfson Brands – a global end-to-end eCommerce company focused on online retail in the sports nutrition and wellness sector – adds a community of over 10m customers across 100 countries worldwide.
It will also enable The Original Fit Factory to access research and brand development specialists through the Wolfson innovation lab, a global affiliate network through FanFuel, while gaining access to media publication Muscle & Health’s digital and print arms, which will significantly increase engagement and growth of the wider ecosystem’s customer base.
“The recent $137m acquisition of these brands will help The Original Fit Factory scale at speed, elevating it to be recognised as a leading global wellness brand,” said Pierre van Niekerk, Chief Financial Officer at The Original Fit Factory.
“These investments will not only allow us to ensure we have an expanse of wellbeing offerings for customers across the world but will also allow us to focus on driving profitability.”
The other deals completed over the course of the last 12 months are for nutrition and wellness brand Smart Protein, holistic employee wellbeing platform Elf at Work, active experiential and fun run provider Cool Events, fitness and yoga studio franchise TruFusion, sustainable lifestyle apparel brand Niyama Sol, remote events platform Virtual Run and military fitness program Battle Ready 360.
CEO Weir added: “It was the realisation that the fitness and wellness community was strong, but splintered which originally inspired me to start the business, and since then the vision has always been to change that through the provision of synergistic products and services with ‘access for all’ at their core.
“The culmination of these acquisitions will be bolstered by the performance driving engine from Wolfson Brands’ innovation lab. This will not only increase our sales performance through a global affiliate network, but will enhance our capabilities to be able to manage our products with its own end-to-end ecommerce and logistics platform.
“We want to elevate the wellbeing journey for everyone and so have thought holistically in making these acquisitions, to ensure each business is aligned with our purpose and values, as part of our vision to become the most loved and accessible wellbeing company on Earth.”