The future of home fitness starts with a failed Kickstarter and an ice hockey star
Helsinki 15 March 2017 – FitWood, a Finnish company making Scandinavian-style fitness equipment for home use, learned from its failed Kickstarter and made its equity crowdfunding campaign a success with help from a professional hockey player.
From ab belts to total gyms, home fitness devices have been around for quite some time. However, there is a problem with their everyday use: they generally look bad, and just don’t fit the harmony of a home.
FitWood wants to solve this problem by adding a dash of classic Scandinavian design. “We do to fitness equipment what Apple did to mobile devices: make them look great and be easy to use every day,” says FitWood CEO and founder Matias Kukkonen.
The focus on products’ visual appeal and on the growing trends of bodyweight training and sustainable design seem like a great fit for crowdfunding. Therefore, to boost its marketing and sales, FitWood kicked off a Kickstarter campaign in January of this year. However, the campaign did not succeed.
“We got our butt kicked,” says Kukkonen. “We were not prepared. Frankly speaking, our experience is that you shouldn’t start a crowdfunding campaign before you have commitments from investors in advance. Without that, the campaign might not get a good start and then the crowds may not have the courage to jump in. With this experience under our belts, we turned to equity funding with Invesdor, and our equity campaign reached its minimum goal in its second week.”
FitWood’s successful first week was driven in part by an investment from professional ice hockey player Aleksander “Sasha” Barkov. In addition to investing, Barkov has his own signature product line with FitWood.
“First of all, we love FitWood’s approach to combining design and fitness – their products keep you fit and fit your home. Bodyweight training is a growing trend in fitness, largely because it’s easy to practice with simple equipment. FitWood taps into that trend with product lines that make it even easier to do bodyweight training at home,” says Mikko Savolainen, communications manager at Invesdor. “Second, their experience with crowdfunding really shows: it is definitely beneficial to try and fail once, because the next time you will succeed.”
More information in FitWood's offering equity offering material
Contact:
Matias Kukkonen, CEO and founder, FitWood Ltd.
matias.kukkonen@fitwood.com, +358 50 308 0663
Mikko Savolainen, communications manager, Invesdor Ltd.
mikko.savolainen@invesdor.com, +358 40 747 5205
FitWood in brief:
FitWood makes home fitness equipment that's easy to use and looks great — every day. We create a new category of fitness equipment with sustainable Nordic wood and Scandinavian design. In that category, we aim to be the global leader. More information at https://fitwood.com/
Invesdor in brief:
Invesdor is the Nordic market leader in equity crowdfunding platforms measured in invested capital and revenue in 2015. A financial technology (fintech) company founded in Finland in 2012, Invesdor operates an online investment platform that connects ambitious European growth companies with investors worldwide. So far Invesdor has helped raise more than 26 million euros and hosted 73 successful equity crowdfunding campaigns.
Invesdor's clients include private and publicly traded companies from Finland, the UK, Norway and Denmark as well as investors from more than 50 countries. Invesdor has offices in London and Helsinki.
