The company announced it was acquiring Within just a day after Facebook's Meta rebranding (and the simultaneous and unceremonious dropping of Oculus branding). Los Angeles-based firm is behind Supernatural, a Beat Saber-style fitness app. Supernatural has been a huge success story in virtual reality fitness with high-impact cardio and movement-based exercises.
This acquisition is a smart one as the company seeks to expand its VR ambitions and create a metaverse. Supernatural was also a hot commodity in the last year and a quarter, as more people looked into home workout solutions amid frequent gym closures.
We are thrilled to announce our partnership with Meta. This will allow us to have more resources and offer more music, creative workouts, and more social experiences in VR. We will continue to launch new workouts each day, Chris Milk, CEO of Within, and Leanne Pedante, Head of Fitness, wrote in a blog.
According to the company, its existing team of managers, coaches and choreographers will continue to work after the acquisition. Supernatural will be operated as part of Metas Reality Labs division.
We will also be exploring ways to improve future hardware to support VR apps. Jason Rubin, Metas' VP of Play, wrote that this was a way to encourage other developers to create new VR fitness experiences. We believe that fitness can be a huge success in VR, where there are multiple third-party apps.
Within was founded in 2015. It has raised more than $50 million. The most recent round included a $40 million Series A back in 2017. Temasek led the round, as did Emerson Collective. Andreessen Horowitz and Emerson Collective were also investors.
The financial details of the acquisition are not known.
