Function Health’s $300m raise shows where investor money is going; but fitness still doesn’t work neatly on a spreadsheet.
I was recently asked what I make of Function Health (Mark Hyman’s longevity platform) raising nearly $300m at a $2.5bn valuation and what that means for the rest of the health and fitness industry.
The honest answer is: I’m not sure yet.
What it does clearly show is that money is flowing into wellness.
Fitness is still a relatively small market. Wellness has a much bigger ceiling, and that’s where investors are placing their bets.
The risk is that billions get poured into increasingly complex health solutions for people who, in reality, just want to move a bit better and feel a bit better without the burden of constant testing, dashboards and boxes to tick.
I suspect a fair amount of that capital will get burned. Inflated valuations aren’t new.
Why wellness looks so attractive to investors
Over the last five years, investors have known health and wellness was a sector to back. But post-COVID, no one wanted exposure to boutique fitness. It became an investor graveyard.
Now they’ve got tech-led wellness brands offering scalability, data, clean P&Ls, things boardrooms understand. It looks neat on paper, so money is flooding back in.
The problem is that fitness doesn’t work neatly on paper.
Fitness is still as much a feeling as it is a data set. And a lot of this risks missing the mark in the real world, with real people.
The role of personal brands in the wellness boom
You also can’t help but notice that many of these platforms are being led by high-profile individuals. Whether that’s Mark Hyman or Bryan Johnson, personal brand is doing a lot of the heavy lifting.
The Johnson project, in particular, could easily turn into a bit of a circus. From a marketing perspective, it’s genius. Long-term, I’m less convinced.
From an investor standpoint, the excitement is obvious. But there’s also a risk people get their fingers burned, which could lead to a broader retraction in capital, even from things that are actually working. In the medium term, that creates hesitancy, not confidence.
Is health tech a threat to gyms and trainers?
Function Health offers bloodwork, diagnostics and AI-driven analysis. But health and fitness are two different things.
If anything, this should encourage gyms and coaches to focus on what they’re actually good at: training, community and identity.
We don’t need to become health tech companies. We need to partner with them where it makes sense and let them handle the bits they’re built for.
I don’t think this fundamentally changes the landscape. What it does do is accelerate the conversation around quality. If you’re not good, people just won’t come. They’ll lean on tech tools instead.
The real pressure on fitness
In my mind, the bigger threat to fitness is GLP-1s. And even that’s an opportunity for those who provide a strong sense of community and belonging.
The mistake we keep making is trying to commoditise fitness.
Anyone who’s lived in gyms knows fitness is a feeling. It’s identity. It’s earned. It’s the sweat, the effort and the shared experience.
That’s what fitness is. It’s visceral. It’s not something you get from an app.
What this probably means is that penetration stays around 16–20% and never hits 40%. A lot of people would take a pill to be thin if they could. But there will always be people who still get up, go to a sweaty gym, train with their mates and want to feel better. That doesn’t go away.
I focus on three things:
1. Lean into the tech, without trying to become it
You don’t need to do everything yourself. Tech can enhance your product without you becoming a nutritionist or a generalist.
2. Go hyper-personalised, hyper-local and hyper-human
Be a great training environment with a strong programme and a real sense of community.
3. Embrace premiumisation
For me, that means simple, friction-free, fast, slick service.
Do those things well, and data and technology can make good gyms better, not obsolete.