Brad Feld, Foundry Group: Fitbit Closes $12M in Series C Funding

January 24, 2012

Fitbit, the maker of the Fitbit Ultra Wireless Activity and Sleep Tracker has raised $12 Million in Series C funding from existing investors: Foundry Group, True Ventures, SoftTech VC and Felicis Ventures. The capital will be used to further accelerate the company’s strong growth trajectory. In the last 6 months, Fitbit has launched the Fitbit Ultra, expanded its retail and international distribution and introduced Aria, its new Wi-Fi Smart Scale.

The funding marks a pivotal point for the company. “We’ve moved beyond being a single product company and are creating incredible digital health products and experiences. This funding will help us accelerate the hiring of the best hardware and software engineers, designers, product managers and marketers, ” said James Park, CEO and co-founder of Fitbit. “This is the perfect time for passionate and smart people to join us as we create devices and services that improve the health of millions.”

“The digital health and fitness device category requires a deep understanding of consumer needs, an unquestionable ability to deliver a successful product and technical expertise built from years of experience in the industry,” said Brad Feld, Managing Director at Foundry Group. “Fitbit has demonstrated these traits while building and launching several successful digital health products and services and is clearly the leading company to grow this category to its full potential.”

Their latest device, the Aria Wi-Fi Smart Scale was introduced at CES. It tracks weight, body fat %, and BMI over time and integrates with Fitbit’s online social and motivational tools.

“As consumer demand continues to rise for products that combine health and technology, analysts predict the digital health industry to be worth $4 billion by 2014,” said James Park, CEO and co-founder of Fitbit. “It’s gratifying to see a strong positive response from retailers, consumers and analysts to our products. We’re proud that Fitbit is playing a key role in building this new category.”

Set Up, Step On and Get Motivated

With the launch of Fitbit Aria, Fitbit is stepping beyond Activity and Sleep trackers. “Your fitness journey is an emotional one. We want to provide an ecosystem of tools that help our users understand patterns and trends across their data so they can recognize where changes need to be made. Aria is the latest in our line of innovative and simple tools that motivate consumers to reach their health and fitness goals,” said Park.

The Fitbit Aria Smart Scale can be set up in minutes and then easily taps into your Wi-Fi network to automatically upload your weight and percent (%) body fat information to Fitbit.com each time you step on the scale. Medical research studies have shown that monitoring body weight is an effective strategy to prevent weight gain, and people who weigh themselves once a day can lose up to twice the weight of those who don't do daily weigh ins.

Aria supports up to eight people in one household and uses smart technology to differentiate who is being weighed at any given time. Your personal weight information is private by default and only shared within your household or online network if you want it to be. You can actively set which friends in the Fitbit community will be part of your weight loss or weight management journey.

In addition, Fitbit.com offers additional online tools to track your weight stats and goals over time. Easy-to-read graphs and simple tools like body composition profile and food logging give you a comprehensive look at your weight loss journey. At Fitbit.com, you can also connect with friends and earn badges for extra motivation.

Aria ($129.95 USD) will be shipping in late April 2012.