Athos closes $35.5 million Series C round

By

Obi Anyanwu

Published
Nov 19, 2015

Athos, a Redwood City, California-based fitness apparel brand, announced Wednesday that it has closed a $35.5 million Series C investment round. Social Capital led the round, which also included investors, MAS Holdings, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Felix Capital, as well as existing investors, DMC, True Ventures and Golden State Warriors managing partner and chairman, Joe Lacob.

The brand pioneered innovative fitness apparel that provides a personalized and motivating training experience according to insights made from people of all fitness levels. Some of the nation’s top sports performance institutes, like the NBA Champion Golden State Warriors, ProActive in Los Angeles and Fast Twitch in Miami, have implemented the Athos technology since the product launched six months ago. Athos garments measure heart rate, acceleration and muscle activity using EMG (electromyography). The data is then sent to the wearer’s mobile device to track progress.
 
The brand intends to put the $35.5 million investment to drive innovation, support increasing consumer demand, and grow its team, which now includes Don Faul and Rose Yao, the COO and VP of Product, respectively.

Dhananja Jayalath, CEO and co-founder of Athos, stated: “My co-founder Chris and I created Athos to solve a very real problem. We both cared a ton about our health and fitness and spent hours each week in the gym. But we didn’t know how to train. So we set out to build something that could help us reach our personal fitness goals, something that would help us do the right exercises, with the right form, at the right intensity."
  
Jayalath, along with Christopher Wiebe and Chamath Palihapitiya, co-founded Athos in 2012. The brand was born from an advanced engineering project at the University of Waterloo in Canada.