“Almost every industry will be ‘Pelotonized’ in the post-pandemic world,” wrote trend forecaster and lover of buzzwords Ion Valis in a blogpost at the start of last year. “Just as the hot VC phrase of the past decade was ‘Uber for X’, I predict that post-pandemic it will be ‘the Peloton of Y’.”
You can see why Valis wanted to go all-in on the exercise startup. In September 2020, Peloton announced a 172% increase in sales from the year prior and more than 1m new signups for its streaming classes. The company, which sold its first bike on Kickstarter in 2013, became known as one of the small group of “winners” from the pandemic and, along with Netflix and Amazon, its share price rocketed. By the end of 2020 it was valued at $45bn.
