For those of you reading for the first time, welcome to Sweat Ventures. I write about M&A and Investment themes that catch my eye in the world of Fitness, Outdoor Recreation, and Sports.
Introduction
Earlier this year, I was reading Fitt Insider’s Tuesday newsletter, and a particular acquisition sparked my curiosity. Publicly traded brick-and-mortar fitness behemoth Life Time acquired influential fitness personality Brian Mazza’s personal brand, High Performance Lifestyle Training (HPLT). Although HPLT has a physical gym location, I think a more accurate definition of the business is a wellness and performance-oriented community and live experience curator.
I was familiar with HPLT through its social media presence, and I was interested in further exploring Life Time’s strategic rationale for this acquisition, given that this was a unique business model to pursue. Was this purely financially motivated, or is there something deeper that Life Time is attempting to tap into? Let’s dig in.
High Performance Lifestyle Training (HPLT)
HPLT was founded in 2019 by entrepreneur and influential social media personality Brian Mazza (726k followers on Instagram). Its mission is to “maximize human potential through health, wellness, and community.” They do this through three primary revenue streams
HPLT HQ: A physical high-end gym and wellness center located in Westchester, New York. The $399.00 per month gym grants patrons access to a world class gym facility, sauna and cold plunges, bloodwork, and breathework/meditation classes.
HPLT Runners: A running group that offers supportize group runs, camaraderie, and events.
HPLT is an exention of Mazza’s personal online brand, and he was able to leverage his following to create a community that shares common athletic performance goals (HPLT 16k followers on Instagram).
What’s somewhat unique, is the brand is not neccesarily attempting to reach the maxiumum number of potential consumers through online training plans and digital fitness solutions, rather its focusing on impactful, high-end, in-person experiences.
A photo from a recent HPLT Experience
Life Time’s Strategic Rationale
What was curious to me about this acquisition is that I imagine it was on the smaller end of things for what Life Time normally considers. As of their most recent 10Q (3/31/2025), Life Time had $2.4B in Trailing Twelve-Month (TTM) Revenue and $518.5M in TTM Adjusted EBITDA. They operate 170 fitness centers in 31 states and 1 Canadian Province. Suffice it to say that they have serious spending power when adding brands to their portfolio.
HPLT, on the other hand, is a much smaller operation that, quite frankly, won’t move the needle for Life Time on a purely financial basis. Although no financial details of the transaction were disclosed, based on the back-of-the-napkin estimates below, I estimated HPLT’s revenue at the time of acquisition to be in the $3-$5M range.
So if it wasn’t purely financially motivated, what interested Life Time about HPLT?
I think the answer is two-fold:
Acquiring an engaged community
Signaling a change in focus from products to experiences
There has been a shift among Millennial and Gen Z consumers away from finding a sense of community in more traditional outlets such as churches and neighborhoods and toward social media and consumer product brands.
HPLT has proven that it can foster a strong sense of community through authentic and engaging live experiences. Life Time’s acquisition not only brings Brian Mazza and HPLT's 800k followers into its ecosystem, but it also now possesses a proven blueprint for launching these experiences. If Life Time attempted to develop these types of experiences in-house, they would toe a fine line between being labeled as too “corporate” and losing the authenticity you get in the social media-led grassroots movements.
With Brian Mazza staying on board to lead integration, Life Time can embed retreats and micro-summits, based on the HPLT Experience model, into their clubs nationwide, hopefully replicating that authentic engagement that most big-box gyms lack. Life Time’s Vice President of Group Training and Studio, Jessie Syfko said, “Brian’s vision and passion align perfectly with our mission, and together, we’re excited to bring our members uniquely curated events and opportunities they can’t find anywhere else.”
Community Acquisition
Similar to how many companies in highly skilled industries use “acquihire” (buying a company to acquire its talent) as an M&A strategy, I believe fitness companies could follow a similar playbook of Community Acquisition (acquicommunity doesn’t really roll off the tongue).
This HPLT acquisition could spark similar deals of corporate brands looking to build out live-experience and community-oriented offerings through acquiring an engaged community rather than building it from the ground up.
One related angle that I think brands could consider is to acquire established run clubs. This idea initially came on my radar from Jake Heyen, who writes the Active Overwatch newsletter. A major trend with Gen Z and Millennial consumers is turning to run clubs for this in-person community experience. Run clubs have evolved from casual meetups to powerful brands with cult-like followings. The Austin-based “Raw Dawg Run Club” at one point had over 100k followers on Instagram and was getting 800+ people in their 20s showing up to 8:00 AM Saturday morning runs. They grew to the point of getting shut down by the City of Austin for ordinance violations and disrupting normal trail access on Lady Bird Lake.
Strava reported a ~59% global growth in run-club participation in 2024. This growth probably undershoots the reality due to the informal nature of many of these community meetups.
Most of these clubs aren’t monetized in any way, and they are purely community-focused (which, for what it’s worth, I think is a good thing), but they do have an engaged following. Organizers could look to cash in on their sweat equity through partnerships with established brands that have difficulty creating something similar organically.
Conclusion
Life Time’s acquisition of HPLT signals a bold shift. Health clubs and brands will not be competitive if they focus solely on providing high-quality products or services. Consumers are looking for more. Consumers want experiences more than things, and a key component of that experience is being able to share it with others.
The biggest obstacle that the acquirers of these communities will face is maintaining the authenticity of the grassroots brand. Life Time should be weary of deviating from what made HPLT engaging and do everything they can to keep Brian Mazza onboard. Otherwise, they risk losing the brand's authenticity and it just becomes another uninspired corporate effort to engage their customers.
