Join three Harvard founders building technology that doesn't exist yet; shape the future of human performance
Wear our prototype 24/7; help us prove that continuous monitoring unlocks athletic potential
Lead our seed round; fund a team solving a problem that matters to the world's best athletes
B - Believe
Recovery and sleep are more important than exercise tracking; current wearables miss what actually matters
Your body holds secrets you can't feel; HRV and continuous data reveal when to push and when to rest
Elite athletes will validate the product; their adoption creates an unassailable brand halo for consumers
C - Care
Build something that helps athletes avoid the overtraining, injury, and burnout you've felt yourself
Stop guessing why you plateau, collapse, or get injured; finally understand your own physiology
First-mover advantage in recovery science; capture the high-value segment giants like Nike are ignoring
There are no rows in this table
Notes:
Will Ahmed read 500+ medical papers on human physiology while overtraining as Harvard squash captain (2010-2012)
Co-founders John Capodilupo (CS/statistics, sophomore at Harvard) and Aurelian Nicolae (mechanical engineering, Harvard grad, Romanian) met at Quincy House
Originally named "Bobo Analytics" in 2011; renamed WHOOP (a motivational phrase Ahmed used before squash matches)
Incubated at Harvard Innovation Lab (first year the i-Lab existed); spent 18 months there before moving to Boston
Ahmed raised ~$300K from family/friends, then ~$700K from angels to start
You're a talented engineer or data scientist at Harvard. You want to build something that matters.
You're an elite athlete. You train 3-4 hours daily. You have no idea what that means for your body.
Wearables are exploding: Nike FuelBand, Fitbit, Jawbone. Everyone is chasing steps.
T - Tension
Big tech companies and legacy brands are building fitness gadgets, but none understand physiology.
You overtrain, plateau, collapse. 70% of athletes experience this. Current trackers count steps, not recovery.
Most wearables have sky-high churn; users abandon them in months. Hardware alone isn't defensible.
O - Opportunity
Three Harvard students found what 500 medical papers revealed: HRV and continuous data unlock recovery.
A 24/7 wrist sensor measures what you can't feel: recovery, strain, sleep stages. Your body's secrets revealed.
Elite athlete validation builds brand equity that scales to consumers; subscription data creates stickiness.
R - Resolution
Early prototypes working with Cambridge Consultants; custom ML algorithms solving unsolved problems in PPG.
LeBron James and Michael Phelps among first 100 users; their trainers integrate WHOOP into regimens.
$3.39M seed (Aug 2013) from Atlas, Founder Collective, NextView, Accomplice; Board includes MIT Media Lab founder.
Y - Yes
Own founding equity in technology that could change how humans understand performance forever.
Feel what it's like to truly know your body; join the athletes who never want to take this off.
Back a contrarian bet: recovery over activity, data over hardware, elite adoption before mass market.
There are no rows in this table
Notes:
Ahmed was "perpetually fundraising" for 12 months; rejected by 100+ investors
Key insight: "Customers are good at identifying problems, less good at solutions. Coaches asked for exercise analytics; their real problem was player availability and injury."
Strategy: "If we could get the world's best athletes to organically like WHOOP, building a brand around performance that could scale to consumers would follow"
Competitive landscape: Nike FuelBand (launched 2012, discontinued 2014), Fitbit, Jawbone UP were step-counting; no one focused on recovery
2015: WHOOP 1.0 launched; $12M Series B announced; LeBron spotted wearing WHOOP in Kia commercial
Board advisors: Nicholas Negroponte (MIT Media Lab founder), Stephen Wolfram (Mathematica creator)
You're a talented engineer, designer, or data scientist. You want your work to matter beyond metrics.
You train hard. You sleep poorly. You plateau, get injured, or burn out without knowing why.
Wearables crashed after Jawbone; investors are cautious about hardware without recurring revenue.
T - Tension
Big tech pays well but your impact disappears into products used mindlessly. You crave meaningful work.
Fitness trackers count steps but can't tell you if you should push harder or rest today.
One-time hardware sales create boom-bust cycles; most wearable companies flame out quickly.
O - Opportunity
WHOOP inverted wearables: recovery over activity, insight over notifications. Built from 500 medical papers.
WHOOP measures 100x per second, synthesizing strain, recovery, and sleep into actionable coaching.
Subscription model with free hardware creates predictable revenue and remarkably low churn rates.
R - Resolution
500+ employees, Boston HQ in Kenmore Square; alumni have shaped the future of health wearables.
Used by elite athletes, Fortune 500 CEOs, and everyday performers; members report fewer injuries, better sleep.
$3.6B valuation, $406M raised; NFLPA, PGA, MLB partnerships; expanding into healthcare and B2B.
Y - Yes
Build technology that helps humans unlock their potential; grow your career as WHOOP scales globally.
Feel what it's like to truly understand your body; join a community obsessed with getting better.
Back a category leader positioned to capture the premium, sticky segment of a $192B market.
There are no rows in this table
Notes:
Will Ahmed founded WHOOP in 2012 at Harvard Innovation Labs after reading 500+ medical papers on human physiology while overtraining as a squash captain
Key differentiator: screenless, 24/7 monitoring focused on recovery rather than activity; collects 50-100MB data per user per day
Ahmed quote: "Feelings are largely overrated... there are secrets your body is trying to tell you that WHOOP is now able to measure"