ADVERTISEMENT

NBA, NFL Investments Push Hyperice Valuation to $700 Million

NBA, NFL Investments Push Hyperice Valuation to $700 Million

Hyperice, a maker of performance recovery products, is valued at $700 million after raising $48 million from the National Basketball Association, the NFL’s investment arm 32 Equity and a group of professional athletes including tennis star Naomi Osaka, golfer Rickie Fowler, the Houston Texans’ J.J. Watt and Houston Rockets’ Russell Westbrook.

“We’re looking forward to working with these athletes and organizations who have had an authentic connection to the company for years,” Chief Executive Officer Jim Huether said in an interview.

Irvine, California-based Hyperice, best known for a massage therapy device known as Hypervolt, will use the funding to accelerate growth, improve artificial intelligence capabilities and develop its connected fitness effort, known as HyperSmart. The latter syncs with Apple Health and Strava to develop curated recovery routines for users based on their workouts.

Hyperice, which uses vibration, percussion, compression and thermal technology to aid in recovery, is set to exceed $200 million in revenue in calendar 2020. That’s about 20 times more than its $10 million in sales in 2017, Huether said, noting that September was the company’s best month yet. The company has been profitable for the past five years, he added.

Longevity

“I’ve realized how crucial recovery is to getting the most out of my training and preparing my body for competition,” Osaka, ranked third in the world in women’s tennis, said in an emailed statement. “Hyperice has improved my body and overall health and I know will be fundamental to having a long and healthy career, which is why I invested and want to use my platform to encourage every athlete to take recovery seriously.”

Athletes including Fowler, Anthony Davis, Ben Simmons and Jarvis Landry are invested in Hyperice through Main Street Advisors, a Santa Monica-based investment advisory firm founded by Paul Wachter that led the fundraising round with SC.Holdings, a private equity firm founded by Jason Stein and Eastbridge Group. Stein will be joining Hyperice’s board.

NBA, NFL Investments Push Hyperice Valuation to $700 Million

Osaka, the Kansas City Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes, the Oklahoma City Thunder’s Chris Paul and surfer Kelly Slater are among athletes who directly invested in the round. OneTeam, a platform founded by the National Football League Players Association, the Major League Baseball Players Association and RedBird Capital Partners, is another new investor.

In total, 17 athletes have newly invested in the company.

The company’s connection to star athletes goes back to its inception. The “hyper” in Hyperice comes from a line of sneakers worn by Kobe Bryant who was heavily involved in the development of its early products.

“We started Hyperice not only to help improve athletes’ performance and longevity, but to offer the same level of technology to everyday people,” Anthony Katz, Hyperice’s founder, said in a statement.

UFC, Tottenham

Hyperice, which is the official recovery technology partner of the NBA, UFC, and English soccer club Tottenham Hotspur, hopes adding new investors will enhance its global reach. It currently has a footprint in 68 countries, and Japan, China, Korea and Taiwan are among its strongest-performing, Huether said.

Hyperice was last valued at $10 million in 2015 and, before this round, had only raised $4.5 million in capital from early investors like Blake Griffin and Lindsey Vonn. Griffin is set to be elected to the board later this year, Huether said.

In March 2020, it acquired NormaTec, a maker of compression products.

“Our goal is to be the Apple or Tesla of recovery,” Huether said.

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.