Mindbody ClassPass to go public in 12-18 months, CEO says

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By Ananya Mariam Rajesh

(Reuters) – Mindbody ClassPass is aiming to go public in the next 12-18 months and has retained Goldman Sachs as its lead banker, the CEO of the fitness and wellness marketplace told Reuters in an interview.

California-based Mindbody, which went public in 2015, was taken private by Vista Equity Partners for $1.9 billion in 2019. In 2021, it acquired ClassPass, a subscription-based workout platform, valuing the combined entity at about $3 billion then.

“We are a story of two different businesses under one umbrella, both of which are growing, both of which are profitable, setting us up for an eventual IPO,” CEO Fritz Lanman said.

“We have Goldman … but we haven’t chosen the second and third leads yet,” he added.

In its last funding round in 2021, the company raised $500 million through a strategic convertible debt investment led by Sixth Street.

Together now known as Mindbody ClassPass, the company is expecting to achieve a 20% growth in revenue for 2024 touching around $500 million, Lanman said, adding that ClassPass is 65% bigger than pre-Covid.

The company is seeing a strong recovery post-pandemic with increased demand for yoga and in-person fitness sessions. Moreover, ClassPass application is leveraging artificial intelligence to help customers book salon and spa sessions.

Lanman said the company is keeping an eye on how IPOs have been performing, with the cash from the offering to be mainly for shareholder liquidity and mergers and acquisitions.

Vista Equity is the biggest shareholder of the business along with all ClassPass venture capitalists including L Catterton, Temasek, General Catalyst and Thrive Capital continuing to be stakeholders as the business is compounding really fast for them, he added.

(Reporting by Ananya Mariam Rajesh in Bengaluru; Editing by Vijay Kishore)