Payal Kadakia

This founder hit unicorn status by fixing the most annoying part of working out: finding the class.

In 2011, Payal Kadakia got home from work and searched online for a dance class.

She spent hours clicking through broken links and outdated schedules, and couldn’t find a single option that worked.

It didn’t make sense… booking a class should’ve been as easy as booking a dinner reservation!

So she launched Classtivity, a search engine for classes.

But it failed.

Even if people found options, they rarely booked.

Then she tried a one-month trial pass for $49.

That didn’t work either.

Less than 15% of users ever returned to a studio.

The product wasn’t sticky enough.

The business model was weak.

Then came the third version: a flat-fee monthly subscription that gave members access to thousands of fitness classes across multiple studios.

It solved the core problem. It created consistency. And it finally worked.

In 2012, she joined Techstars.

In 2014, she rebranded to ClassPass.

And by 2015, she’d raised $70 million across Series B and C rounds, backed by Google Ventures and Thrive Capital.

The company expanded to 39 cities worldwide and built a network of 8,500 studios.

Over 30 million class reservations were booked through the platform.

In 2020, ClassPass reached unicorn status.

In 2021, it was acquired by Mindbody in a deal reportedly worth $1B.