Technology

EGYM, a connected fitness startup conceived after the founder hit a wall at the gym, lands $200M at a $1.2B+ valuation

Published

5 hours ago

September 25, 2024

EGYM, a connected fitness startup conceived after the founder hit a wall at the gym, lands $200M at a $1.2B+ valuation

Getting healthy is big business these days. Now a startup that’s come up with a unique approach leveraging tech to help people with their exercise regimes is announcing a big round of funding, putting some weight behind its own push for growth.

Munich-based EGYM — a maker of connected fitness equipment and personalized training tech that has also built out a fitness marketplace between gyms and corporate wellness programs — has closed a Series G round of just over $200 million from L Catterton and Meritech, both new backers of the startup.

The funding is coming in at a post-money valuation of more than $1.2 billion, CEO and founder Philipp Roesch-Schlanderer confirmed to TechCrunch in an interview, and it will be used in a couple of key areas. The company wants to drive more business in its newest markets, the U.K. and the U.S., where it has respectively acquired two smaller companies, Hussle and FitReserve. It also wants to continue building out an AI-based assistant, called Genius, that it launched earlier this year. Despite the hype around AI, Genius is no AI gimmick, Roesch-Schlanderer said.

“I don’t really have an opinion about the broader AI world, but what I can tell you is, in our field, it adds huge value to making sure that people have always the best possible workout at their fingertips based on past success, their behaviors, their goals.” Only around 10% of gym goers have access to personal trainers, making the AI trainer a practical alternative, he added.

Roesch-Schlanderer founded EGYM after his own frustrations with gyms and working out.

Nearly 200 million people around the world stay in shape by working out at gyms. Roesch-Schlanderer also wanted to get in shape, but he found himself at an impasse. If you don’t already go to the gym and work out regularly, chances are you don’t quite know where to begin. And even people who do go regularly don’t have a lot of data about what they could be doing better or differently to avoid getting hurt.

With those gaps in mind, EGYM built a series of connected workout stations that help track what users are doing, leaning on apps to help them track their activity both on EGYM equipment and, using data from wearables, wherever they happen to be breaking a sweat. Initially, EGYM contracted with gyms to sell the equipment, and then later with companies building out company wellness plans to get their employees using that equipment. The whole model is based around B2B2C: No direct-to-consumer plans are in the works.

The formula has been a big success. Roesch-Schlanderer said the company is profitable on an EBITDA basis, and expects to generate $500 million in revenues in 2025.

The company today says that its corporate network operation, Wellpass, has 17,000 sports partners (that is, gyms), 14,000 corporate customers, and 3 million “eligible” employees. (As a point of comparison, when EGYM last raised funding — $225 million in July 2023 — it had 2.5 million users on Wellpass.) Overall, some 18,000 fitness and health centers use EGYM machines and services, working out to some 6 million people using EGYM’s products monthly. Now around 75% of the business is subscription-based, and the remaining 25% is focused around its equipment, he said. “The corporate subscription market is bigger than gym tech but the gym tech is what creates the value,” said Roesch-Schlanderer.

Roesch-Schlanderer is tapping into a rising trend. The world is slowly coming around to the idea of preventative healthcare, looking at better ways of identifying what might go wrong and what to do to avoid that, before it gets too late and your options have dwindled down to cocktails of medication, operations, and a lot of expensive doctor visits.

Companies like Neko Health — the startup co-founded by Daniel Ek — are building clinics that scan customers’ bodies and combines that with AI algorithms to provide a wide range of diagnostics about the state of users’ health so consumers get a better grip on the state of their health. Others are exploring what role the microbiome might play in our health regimes. Fitness is shaping up to be a core part of that proposition.

Nevertheless, the size of the investment is notable given that we are still seeing a dearth of growth rounds in Europe, particularly for companies that are not focused on AI.

The AI play at EGYM, launched earlier this year, is still new and in progress. Asked about which models it uses, the company told me, “EGYM Genius is based on a set of machine learning models that are tailored to the specific problems of the ‘workout’ domain. So Genius is not based on any of the big large language models, but rather on a set of models that has been specifically tailored and trained based on the many years of workout data that EGYM has collected. This allows us to combine the power of deep learning models with advantages of other machine learning methods that e.g. provide more explainability than LLMs.”

Roesch-Schlanderer said that he was proactively getting approached for another round as soon as the previous one was announced.

“We had enough cash to survive another COVID,” he told TechCrunch. COVID-19, and being able to survive something like it, figures big in his mind, because the company nearly collapsed during the pandemic.

However, given that he was getting a lot of inbound interest, he decided to use the moment to find what he described as “dream investors.” Taking a leaf from the Jeff Bezos school of fundraising, he said, “I decided to assemble the right investors for my mission.” That mission: to double down on growth, with an appetite for a little risk thrown in by way of its AI play.

Paul Madera, co-founder and partner at Meritech, and Marc Magliacano, a managing partner at L Catterton, are both joining the board with this round.

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Technology

Watch out Dyson: these 3 radically different hair dryers are making haircare exciting again

Published

4 mins ago

September 25, 2024

NewsAdmin

Three hair dryers from IFA 2024 that impressed me; the Dreame Pocket (right) Laifen Mini (middle) and Shark FlexFusion (left)

There were plenty of devices at IFA 2024 that showed how technology in general is getting creative with form and function, but a lot of eyes were on the beauty space as it continues to radically reinvent what hair styling devices look and feel like.

Gone are the days of conventional hair dryers being the market norm; the once iconic pistol-shaped handheld dryers are shifting into new form factors, making the best hair dryers interesting once again.

Of course, much of this can be attributed to Dyson’s inventive reimagining of the haircare space, with devices like the Dyson Supersonic and Dyson Airwrap pushing the limits of haircare engineering. However, with its gadgets being so costly, it was only a matter of time before brands erupted across the industry to snap up interested beauty lovers with smaller pockets.

Three new dryers in particular demonstrated how varied the tools can now be; Dreame’s new foldable Pocket high-speed hair dryer, Shark’s new FlexFusion multi-styler and the Laifen Mini, a more compact high-speed stick dryer.

Pocket full of sunshine

Starting us off, we have Dreame’s new hair dryer, the Dreame Pocket, which packs some impressive specs into its foldable frame. It weighs just 10.5oz / 300g, but thanks to its high-speed motor, offering 110,000 RPM, you almost get the performance levels of full-sized dryers.

The Dreame Pocket Hair Dryer with its attachments

The Dreame Pocket is small but mighty (Image credit: Future)

Its nozzle is hinged, allowing for even more convenience when you’re on the go, but it’s also a versatile form factor that allows you to style at a variety of angles and with different attachments. Granted, these are pretty chunky and seem to go against the design ethos of the dryer – especially considering it’s a pretty tight fit if you pack them all in provided travel bag. I also didn’t love its weighting when used in its wand orientation with the curling barrel, but I do appreciate the convenience of having a curling barrel at all in this lightweight form factor.

It’s kind of a blend of the best of the Airwrap with the rotating head of Shark’s Flexstyle, which results in a cool, high-performance dryer that’s perfect for travel. However, it’s quite pricey at $159.99 / €159, and its design might not be for everyone.

A Shark in the multi-styler waters

Shark’s newest multi-styler/dryer was a little divisive. As our Homes Editor highlighted in her first impression of the new Shark FlexFusion, this corker of a multi-styler packs basically every attachment you’d ever need from a haircare device, but in doing so, it makes some significant sacrifices on size. In short, this is one chunky multi-styler.

Nevertheless, there are some innovative new additions. Shark has addressed the fact that most people don’t wash their hair every day, so had included settings for both wet and dry hair. I was also interested by its curlers and new straightener attachment. Using similar air straightening logic as the Dyson Airstrait, Shark’s alternative also uses hot plates in addition to airflow to tame your locks. Similarly, the hot brush combines bristles and heated ceramic combs to tame frizz while still achieving a beautiful blowout.

Shark FlexFusion multi-styler

The FlexFusion does pretty much anything you could want it to (Image credit: Future)

The FlexFusion will have a list price of £369.99 (roughly $490 / AU$720), a jump up from its simpler sibling, the Shark FlexStyle, which costs $249.99/£299.99 but doesn’t offer the same range of attachments.

Make it Mini

The dark horse for me ended up being the Laifen Mini, a new travel-sized version of its popular Laifen Swift hair dryer. While the original device was positioned as a Dyson Supersonic alternative at a more affordable price point, the brand has since taken its own spin on the form factor – and most importantly, listened to consumer feedback.

Since the original Laifen Swift launched in 2022 there have been several new versions, each iterating slightly to add features like a child lock, hot-to-cool cycling and a broader range of color options. Alongside the Mini, Laifen also announced its new Laifen SE 2, a slightly updated version of its mid-tier dryer.

Laifen Swift

(Image credit: Future)

While it’s the simplest of the dryers I saw, the Mini was actually one of my favourite dryers on the show floor because it felt the most balanced, offering a blend of genuinely useful features with some solid specs and an approachable price point (€99.99, roughly £80), all packaged in a very cute, lightweight (299g/10.56oz) design that still packs a punch with its 110,000 RPM motor. As of right now, it’s not yet coming to the US due to differences in voltage, but the team hopes to change this soon.

While there’s a fair amount of borrowed features and similar specs in haircare, nonetheless it’s really exciting to see such a wide range of form factors and technology breathing life into the once-stagnant area of haircare.

It’s a much-needed change that might bring the fun back into functional, and I can’t wait to get my hands on some of these brilliant blow dryers and multi-stylers.

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Servers computers

Dell Rack Servers | Price List | Refurbprice

Published

8 mins ago

September 25, 2024

NewsAdmin

#Dell #Rack #Servers | #PriceList | #Refurbprice

https://www.refurbprice.com/refurbished-dell-rack-servers-price-list

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Technology

Why Machines Learn: A clever primer makes sense of what makes AI possible

Published

25 mins ago

September 25, 2024

NewsAdmin

Members of the medical staff at the Elithair clinic conduct an artificial Intelligence analysis of Felix Hofmann

Members of the medical staff at the Elithair clinic conduct an artificial Intelligence analysis of Felix Hofmann's scalp and his hair roots. — Machine learning is key to developments in medical diagnostics
Mario Heller/Panos Pictures

Why Machines Learn
Anil Ananthaswamy (Allen Lane (UK); Penguin Random House (US))

As someone who writes for a living, I routinely feel assaulted by the onslaught of generative artificial intelligence. How long before I become a mere massager of prompted paragraphs, the joy of creation abandoned in favour of more, faster, cheaper?

Anil Ananthaswamy’s Why Machines Learn: The elegant maths behind modern AI won’t tell me or you about the future of AI in our society, nor what we should do about it. But whether you regard the algorithms used in facial recognition,…

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Servers computers

The introduction of YPVALUE 42U server rack network cabinet

Published

39 mins ago

September 25, 2024

NewsAdmin

The introduction of YPVALUE 42U server rack network cabinet

Brand: YPVALUE
Width: 600mm, 800mm
Depth: 600mm, 800mm, 1000mm, 1100mm, 1200mm
Height: 18U, 22U, 27U, 32U, 37U, 42U, 48U
Static loading capacity: 600-1200kgs

Application scenarios: data center, communication room, office building, weak current monitoring, shopping center, bank, airport
Suitable for 19″ network equipment, server equipment

product advantages:
1. Provide a variety of cabinet sizes and components, flexible configuration according to different application requirements;

2. Welded frame, combined structure design, light weight, strong structure, flexible and changeable;

3. There are multiple wiring channels at the upper and lower parts that can be closed, and the size of the large wiring holes at the bottom can be adjusted as needed, which is convenient for on-site wiring;

4. Built-in side door, tool-free installation and disassembly, optional lock and anti-disassembly design;

5. The front and rear doors can be quickly disassembled without tools and interchanged left and right, with an opening angle of 180°, which is convenient for equipment installation and maintenance;

6. Advanced revolving door handle, all front and rear door lock keys of the entire HYA series can be opened;

7. There are grounding copper nails in many places in the cabinet to facilitate the grounding of the equipment;

8. Complete accessories, self-contained buckle nut fixing tools; self-contained adjustable movable feet, the maximum static load is up to 800kg;

9. Optional installation base to meet the requirements of fixed cabinet, bottom wire passing, cold air sent from the bottom, and rat-proof;

10. The surface treatment is degreasing, pickling, rust-proof phosphating, pure water cleaning, and electrostatic spraying in compliance with European RoHS environmental protection standards.

Quality Standard:
Comply with EIA-310-E, DIN41491; PART1, IEC297-2, DIN41494; PART7, GB/T3047.2-92 standards; compatible with ETSI standards;
Meet ROSH, CE testing requirements;

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Technology

SSD vs. HDD: What’s the difference, and which is best?

Published

45 mins ago

September 25, 2024

NewsAdmin

SSD vs. HDD: What's the difference, and which is best?

When on the hunt for a new PC or external hard drive, you’ll likely see two different storage options: Traditional hard disk drive (HDD) and solid-state drive (SSD). Deciding on the best one for your needs can be a massive obstacle if you don’t know the difference. Should you go with the old-school HDD or the newer, faster, and better SSD? Here, we’ll help you make the best choice based on crucial factors such as storage size, speed, and price.

If you decide an SSD is right for you, we’ve also rounded the best SSD deals available now.

Storage capacity

It isn’t difficult to find hard drives with several terabytes worth of storage — and they are getting bigger all the time — without too much of an increase in cost to the consumer.

In contrast, SSDs have lower capacity and become prohibitively expensive when you go beyond 4TB capacity in the 2.5-inch SATA model or 2TB in the M.2 model.

However, when it comes to storage space, hard drives will maintain their advantage for the foreseeable future although the conversation will change over the next few years when SATA SSDs appear with 16TB of capacity, and thereafter as prices fall to affordable levels. If you want to store something long-term or store large files and folders, hard drives are the way to go, but that is one of the only areas where hard drives still hold sway.

Speed, design, and durability

Drive “speed” is predominantly focused on how fast they can read and write data. For HDDs, the speed at which the platters spin helps determine the read/write times. When accessing a file, the “read” part of the read/write head notes the magnetic section’s positioning as it flies over the spinning platters. As long as the file being read was written sequentially, the HDD will skim it. However, as the disc becomes crowded with data, it’s easy for a file to be written across multiple sections. This phenomenon is called “fragmenting” and leads to files taking longer to read.

With SSDs, fragmentation is not an issue. Files can be written sporadically across the cells — and are designed to do so — with little impact on read times, as each cell is accessed simultaneously. This easy, simultaneous access to each cell means files are read at incredibly fast speeds — far faster than an HDD can achieve, regardless of fragmentation. That’s why SSDs can make a system feel snappy — because their ability to access data across the entire drive, known as random access, is so much faster.

This faster read speed comes with a catch. SSD cells can wear out over time. They push electrons through a gate to set its state, which wears on the cell and, over time, reduces its performance until eventually the SSD wears out. That said, the time it would take for this to happen for most users is quite long; one would likely upgrade their SSD due to either obsolescence or a desire for more storage space before a standard SSD would fail. There are also technologies like TRIM, which help keep SSDs from degrading too quickly.

There is a balancing act between durability, capacity, and speed as NAND storage technology has moved from the original SLC with 1 bit of data per cell to MLC with 2 bits, then TLC (the T is for Triple), and now QLC for Quad, i.e. 4 bits of data per cell. The Samsung 860 QVO earns that QVO suffix through its use of QLC flash storage.

Cramming more bits of data into each cell allows the manufacturers to increase storage capacity and reduce costs. Unfortunately, there is a problem with hardware longevity, as it becomes more complicated to determine the state of each of the bits in a given cell as the silicon ages. Furthermore, the process of reading and writing takes longer than it did previously, so we see a distinct split in the characteristics of new SSDs. Some models, such as WD Black or Samsung 980 Pro, feature a PCI Express 4.0 interface with TLC NAND and are blazing fast, while other SSDs deliver higher capacity at a lower price but with lower performance and a shorter life span.

The single biggest problem with hard drives is that they are much more vulnerable to physical damage due to their use of mechanical parts. If one were to drop a laptop with an HDD, there is a high likelihood that all those moving parts would collide, resulting in potential data loss and even destructive physical damage that could kill the HDD outright. SSDs have no moving parts, so they can better survive the rigors we impose upon our portable devices and laptops.

Another thing to be mindful of is the design of these devices. HDDs are almost always a 3.5-inch or 2.5-inch disk, while SSDs come in various shapes and sizes. The most common is still the 2.5-inch drive, but smaller SSDs with the M.2 form are becoming increasingly common. If you are considering an upgrade to your PC or laptop with an M.2 SSD, you will need to do some research into NVMe, M.2, and SATA SSDs. This will help you determine whether the M.2 supports the NVMe protocol and whether it is PCI Express Gen 3 or Gen 4. It would be a shame to install a slow SSD in a fast system, and equally upsetting to buy a fast SSD for a system that is unable to reap the benefits of the technology. We love M.2 SSDs, despite their higher price over their SATA III counterparts, as they are much smaller and increasingly offer the fastest storage speeds.

For further information on SATA, you can check out our guide that explains what SATA is.

Pricing

Image used with permission by copyright holder

Although prices have been coming down for years, SSDs are still more expensive per gigabyte than hard drives. For similar amounts of storage, you could end up paying nearly twice as much for an SSD than an HDD — and even more at higher capacities.

While you’re paying higher prices for less space with an SSD, you’re investing in faster, more efficient, and far more durable data storage overall. If you’re building a system with speed, power needs, or portability in mind, then an SSD is going to be the better choice. Adding another hard drive is easy and cheap on most desktops, so it’s a good upgrade down the road if you need more storage space. Having a separate data drive also allows you to update or reinstall your operating system with minimal effort.

In the past year, we have suffered a shortage of PC hardware, and that has stalled the steady reduction in SSD prices. Even so, we are finding fewer reasons to opt for HDDs in most systems. For as little as $60, there are brand-name 500GB SSDs available, which is almost the same price as the average 1TB HDD. At those prices, even casual users will notice a drastic improvement in terms of boot-up time, data access, and general system snappiness. We expect new systems to include an SSD — or at least a hybrid drive.

Hybrid drives, externals, and the final word

Hybrid drives offer a middle ground between the benefits of SSDs and HDDs. They combine an HDD and SSD into one device. There are a couple of different versions of this sort of technology.

First, there are the SSHDs — or solid-state hybrid drives. These drives are full-sized HDDs (often around one or two terabytes) that come equipped with an extra cache of SSD NAND memory (usually a few GBs worth). SSHDs work by learning which files you use most often and writing them to the quickly accessible SSD section of memory. All other files are stored on the HDD’s spinning disc. While an SSHD won’t give you the durability and lower power needs of an SSD, they should still offer a considerable uptick in speed for certain processes.

You can find SSHDs that can fit a 2.5-inch slot, as well as 3.5-inch options. In addition to these two hybrids, which make excellent choices for those with space for only one drive, one could also opt to buy multiple separate drives, depending on their configuration and the amount of space they have for mounting.

AMD Ryzen systems with X399, X400, or X500-series chipset motherboards have access to different types of AMD’s StoreMI technology drives. You could arguably use any combination of these drives to build your own custom storage system; However, the go-to choice for most users is a small SSD paired with a larger HDD. Another storage option is Intel’s Optane memory, which functions as a small caching drive in itself, but it’s not available on AMD systems.

You do have the choice of using a drive as an external storage device for your system. A number of manufacturers create drives like this with the sole intention of using them as an external storage source. They also tend to manufacture external housing kits that fit a range of SSDs and HDDs. External drives deliver the features and benefits of an internal drive, but with added portability.

SSDs are quickly getting singled out as the preferred solution for older, mechanical HDDs. As you look for a new storage setup for your device, consider options that feature an SSD. Those drives tend to run faster and create a noticeable difference in your performance levels. The price tends to be higher for these products, but it will pay off in the long run, thanks to the increased speed you’ll experience from the SSD tech.

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Technology

YouTube Premium subscribers on Android now get conversational AI

Published

1 hour ago

September 25, 2024

NewsAdmin

Featured image for YouTube Premium subscribers on Android now get conversational AI

YouTube has started rolling out its conversational AI. The Generative Artificial Intelligence (Gen AI) feature is currently available to YouTube Premium subscribers using Android devices in the US.

Conversational AI on YouTube rolling out to paying members only

YouTube had previously indicated that it would roll out its own AI feature before 2024 ends. Back then, Google was focused on Bard. Subsequently, Bard graduated to become Gemini AI.

Now, the crowd-sourced, video-sharing platform has offered its conversational AI tool, which could be relying on Gemini AI. Incidentally, YouTube had implied that its Gen AI platform would be a standalone tool. It would allow users to ask questions about the video for answers before actually finishing it.

our conversational AI tool is expanding to all U.S. YouTube Premium members w/ Android devices
use it to dive deeper into the content you ❤️ by asking questions about what you’re watching or for recs for similar videos!!
Advertisement

details here 🎥: https://t.co/HNFj9mlYdV
— TeamYouTube (@TeamYouTube) September 23, 2024

However, YouTube is now rolling out its conversational AI feature inside the YouTube app. Moreover, only YouTube Premium subscribers currently have access to the Gen AI tool.

How to use the Gen AI tool in the YouTube app?

YouTube appears to be testing its Gen AI feature. The video-sharing platform officially announced that users in the US will begin to see the conversational AI tool popping up on their devices.

YouTube has ensured its Gen AI tool is subtle and unobtrusive. According to 9to5Google, it is currently visible on personal devices and in the comments section.

The YouTube Android app, with a YouTube Premium account signed in, is showing an “Ask” button below the video being played. Additionally, swiping left on the comments card also reveals a new “Ask” card.

Tapping on this card brings up a new page that appears similar to a chatbot. Users can either tap on suggested text prompts or type their queries. Alternatively, users can also tap on a new “Summarize video” button. As the name suggests, this will prompt the YouTube AI chatbot to generate a summary of the video being played.

YouTube hasn’t yet confirmed what Large Language Model (LLM) or Gen AI backend it is using. However, some reports suggest YouTube could be relying on Gemini to summarize YouTube videos and comments. YouTube should offer its conversational AI chatbot outside the US. But the company hasn’t indicated any timeframe.

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