Fitness is all about resistance – running against the wind, stretching the muscles against the weight-loss seriousness, strengthening the mind against the strong feeling that park benches and ice cream scoops will probably be somewhat enjoyable. For Tonal, resistance is not just a price offer; it is this element that made this startup one of the favorites in the world of fitness technology.
The numbers speak for themselves. The company has raised nearly $200 million from investment capitalists to date and is becoming a household name with a $2,995 wall-mounted device employing a digital weighing system that can mimic various traditional gym stations.
Since the launch of Tonal in August 2018, the company has built a reputation among fitness enthusiasts in search of fitness-enthusiastic solutions sitting at home that save space without compromising on serious weight-lifting capabilities. Tonal equipment is one of the main beneficiaries of the increase in home sales fitness during the epidemic, as well as an 800% increase in sales between December 2019 and 2020.
The company also announced a partnership with Nordstrom this month that will set up a 50-square-foot sales outlet in the women’s active clothing section of at least 40 Nordstrom stores across the United States, bringing the number of tonal physical positions to 60 by 2021.
Although like all great athletes Tonal’s visible victory convinces the world of his immense hard work against resistance to innovation. Aly Orady, the company’s founder and CEO, had to overcome his own burnout and weight gain while running a blaze to hit his own way.
The company that would become a tonal had to fight through multiple VC rounds of skeptical investors that were a two-letter word that stopped all progress. It is the ability to resist and overcome obstacles that compel Tonal to understand the story.
In the morning after Christmas 2013, Orady became perfectly fit. For the past year or so, he has worked as an engineer at companies such as Samsung, Sun Microsystems, HP and three enterprise startups, which has had a huge impact on him. His corporate hard work left behind a number of health problems; He was severely overweight and developed type-2 diabetes and sleep apnea. “It felt like I was heading for this moment of no return and if I didn’t do something about it, I wouldn’t be able to restore my health,” he recalls.
