Announcing Our Investment in Ladder
Problem: One of the things about fitness is that most of us actually don’t know how to exercise- we only think that we do.
Most of us, when we walk into a gym, exist simultaneously in two polar opposite emotions: an assured self-belief of our own ability to navigate the gym floor and get a great workout, and an intimidating confrontation with a maze of torture machines, of which we know little. We may know that the anterior deltoids is the technical name for the shoulder muscles and are often exercised with the legs in a three-day split, but not have done a squat in 14 months. And everyone stretches before they work out, right?
A cursory look online will reveal that there is no shortage of workout plans out there- we’ve seen the emergence of “fitness influencing” from YouTube to Instagram to Tik Tok. We’re sold routines that oftentimes are being sold on the basis of who is doing the selling rather than the product itself, a problem that has only aggravated with the continued spread of social media.
Enter: Ladder.
Ladder is a mobile platform to enhance your fitness through expertise. Ladder provides workouts that you can trust, created by those who actually know, with the expertise to create a real program. Ladder’s combination of community, expertise, and guided workouts closes the gap for those who know how to work out but are in need of a real program and community. Ladder’s platform allows you to join a guided, structured workout with music, while seeing how the exercises are done. Within the platform, you encounter a community of people that encourage you as you go along.
Ladder has created a fitness experience that brings entire communities of people together to lift each other up toward healthier lives. "People want more than just a good workout," says Ladder CEO Greg Stewart. "They are looking for expert guidance, motivational support, personalization, and they expect a world-class, tech-driven experience. This is exactly what we are delivering.”
Why We Invested: Ladder is an Austin-founded app-based fitness company providing value to a bunch of customers that are underserved in the market. We are very aware of how popular community-based gyms have been in the past several years, with Crossfit, F45, and others dominating the landscape. However, the community-focused mobile solution has thus far been non-existent. 100 Billion dollars a year is spent by Americans in their fitness journeys, and it will come as no surprise that most of us fail. We believe that Ladder’s contribution reflects a category-defining entrant in the space.
Team: Tom Digan, Founder, and Gregory Stewart, CEO
Tom Digan is the Co-Founder & President of Ladder. Prior to joining Ladder full-time Tom spent over a decade working in the hedge fund industry as a Partner at a $1B+ AUM investment firm located in New York. Tom received a Bachelor of Business Administration degree from the University of Notre Dame, with a major in Entrepreneurship. He is a CFA charterholder and was a Forbes 30 under 30 honoree.
Gregory Stewart is the CEO of Ladder. Greg brings a mix of start-up leadership, company-building, and corporate finance experience to the Ladder team. Prior to Ladder, Greg served as COO and a founding team member of Bungalo, an operationally-intensive consumer-facing real estate technology platform he helped build and launch from the ground up within Amherst Residential. Before Bungalo, Greg served as COO and then CEO of a high-growth SaaS start-up also based in Austin. Earlier in his career, Greg worked as a technology investment banker at Goldman Sachs, first in New York and then in San Francisco.
For more information on Ladder, visit their website at https://joinladder.com/
For more information on TXV, visit our website or shoot us a note at connect@txvpartners.com