Whoop starts selling its wearable fitness tech directly to businesses

Mark McLaughlin, who joined Whoop last January as chief business officer, said that over the past 15 months, the wearable-fitness tech company has been focused on building that business out, though it’s “always been a part of the company’s DNA.” Founder and chief executive Will Ahmed is a former captain of the Harvard squash team, and he long envisioned that groups of people, such as sports teams, would buy Whoop’s fitness-tracking band to measure and improve performance.

Whoop has worked with businesses in the past, but those customers would essentially purchase fitness bands in bulk, McLaughlin said. With the launch of the enterprise offering, called Whoop Unite, businesses will be able to access health data and analytics for groups.

The software could be used by organizations such as corporations, sports teams, physicians, and researchers running clinical trials, he said. Whoop is already working with more than 200 customers, including the athletics department at Boston College and Brigham & Women’s Hospital.

McLaughlin, who hails from an enterprise software-as-a-service background, said Whoop Unite is not intended to replace the company’s consumer business.

“Will and I believe strongly that we can have two high growth businesses,” he said. “But it requires that we think about the businesses differently, we resource them differently, and are intentional about how we invest in those.”

He declined to comment specifically on whether Whoop was preparing to go public. The company last raised money at a $3.6 billion valuation.

“Investors in both private and public markets value enterprise revenue higher than they do consumer revenue, because of the retain ability of the customers and long term contracts,” he said. “So we believe that this will ultimately be a value driver for the company.”

Anissa Gardizy can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @anissagardizy8 and on Instagram @anissagardizy.journalism.