Steven Millward · · 3 min readChina’s staffless gym startups are carb-loading on huge amounts of investor cash
On streets and in apartment complexes across China, weird new pods are suddenly popping up. They’re gyms – small, automated, staffless workout rooms where people can enter and pay for their sweaty sessions entirely with their phones.
Just like the shared bicycle services that came before, the startups behind these shared gyms are starting to pull in some serious investor cash.
Three such startups have trousered cash in December. The latest to get funding – earlier today – is Supermonkey, which netted a vague “several hundred million RMB,” at least US$30 million, according to a source speaking with Tech in Asia.
It works like this: find a Supermonkey location.
Photo credit: Supermonkey.
Like this one in a refurbished shipping container:
Photo credit: Supermonkey.
And then use WeChat on your phone, via the Supermonkey brand account, to get a one-time PIN to access the workout space.
GIF credit: Supermonkey.
That’s also how you book a time slot and pay for the session.
Photo credit: Supermonkey.
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