On Wednesday, fitness start-up Tonal revealed that it had raised $250 million in funding, giving it a market cap of $1.6 billion. Tonal has fundraised $450 million in total, and participants in the Series E round included Dragoneer, Cobalt Capital, L Catterton, and Sapphire Ventures.

What is Tonal?

Tonal is a fitness start-up company that has revolutionized exercise and strength training with its patented digital weight, machine learning, and expert coaching technology. The company offers workout stations that can be mounted to the wall and the company's products retail for $2,995. The equipment gives users a total-body workout by generating up to 200 pounds of resistance using an electromagnetic resistance engine. 

Tonal's main rivals are Peloton (NASDAQ: PTON) and Lululemon's (NASDAQ: LULU) Mirror. The company also has some big-name investors including Amazon's (NASDAQ: AMZN) Alexa Fund, Serena Williams, and Stephen Curry.

Is Tonal going to IPO? 

The company is certainly heading in the right direction to go public. Chief Executive Officer Aly Orady said:

"We're building out the leadership team and making sure we have the ... team that can scale the business beyond an IPO." 

Tonal is planning to use the new funding to accelerate its marketing goals, to open more physical stores, and invest in manufacturing in order for it to keep up with its unprecedented demand. The new cash reserve brings the fitness company one step closer to making its market debut. 

Tonal had a strong 2020, sales grew over 8x year-over-year (YoY). The company experienced accelerating demand thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic when people looked for new ways to workout at home. The company also announced a bunch of new hires, including Shannon Crespin, a former executive at Johnson & Johnson, as Chief Operations Officer, and Bryan James, who previously worked at Google and Apple, as the Chief Technology Officer.

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