Knife Capital backs South African gym management platform
South African gym management software platform Octiv has closed a series A funding round from venture capital firm, Knife Capital. The start-up previously raised seed capital from prominent South African angel investors and this round also included an angel investment from an executive at BVNK.
This investment will allow Octiv to fast-track its global expansion drive, add innovative product enhancements, and scale customer service levels to keep up with aggressive growth.
Octiv started as a workout tracking app for CrossFit gyms in South Africa. Mark Fawzy, the CEO and founder of Octiv, formulated this idea when his paperback fitness logbook succumbed to a wet towel in his gym bag.
Since then, Octiv has grown into an all-in-one cloud-based gym management platform that includes everything a gym or fitness studio needs to manage its day-to-day business activities.
Amongst other things, Octiv software enables member management and billing, payment gateway integrations, scheduling, various programmes, lead management, task management, payroll, reporting and website integrations.
“A primary vision of Octiv is handing brick-and-mortar gyms and fitness studios a digital arm to run a seamless and more profitable business. We offer their members the ultimate personalised fitness experience,” says Fawzy.
Octiv successfully breached the South African borders, securing clients in over 27 countries, predominantly in Europe.
“In the current economic climate, capital efficiency is key. We admire how Mark and his team have built Octiv into a lean global recurring revenue SaaS business with very little outside capital,” says Keet van Zyl, Knife Capital founding partner. “We identified the potential in Octiv and its ever-striving objective of becoming a world-class leader in fitness software product development, while being able to humanise the software to ensure that it remains client-centric.”
This investment will accelerate Octiv’s expansion further, allowing the company to upscale its product team for more innovation while building out the sales function to onboard more gyms.
The global fitness industry is valued at $96 billion, with 230 million fitness facilities worldwide and a CAGR of 9.6%. Europe is leading the growth charge, which places Octiv in an ideal position to take advantage of this upward trend given the company’s established client base there. Knife Capital’s presence in the UK will also assist in accelerating Octiv’s European expansion strategy.
Get the most from the Africa Private Equity News app by creating a free membership account. Go to the app home screen, tap the round orange icon in the top-right of your screen and follow the prompts.