Inside ABC Financial's Acquisition of Trainerize

On September 15, 2020, ABC Financial announced its acquisition of Trainerize, a Vancouver-based mobile fitness solution for personal training and member engagement.

“Trainerize powered by ABC” connects clubs, trainers and members to help people achieve their fitness goals in a number of ways, including:

Instructional and workout content
On-demand and broadcast classes
Virtual personal training
Personalized training programs and nutrition planning
Habit and lifestyle coaching

Additional features aim to boost accountability and social motivation through in-app text and video messaging, fitness challenges, community groups and milestone badges. “Trainerize powered by ABC” also includes a market-leading watch application to make fitness fit easily into people’s daily routine.

ABC Financial will be adding the entire Trainerize staff to its team. The acquisition comes on the heels of ABC Financial’s acquisition of GymSales in July 2020.

Here, Bill Davis, the CEO of ABC Financial, shares further insights into the acquisition of Trainerize and the “Trainerize powered by ABC” solution:

Why was the acquisition of Trainerize a good opportunity for ABC?

There were several considerations. We viewed Trainerize as a foundational investment for ABC that really is focused on advancing our vision and mission, which is to become the most comprehensive club management solution in the marketplace. We really think Trainerize distinguished itself as the very best as it pertains to personal training capabilities. Recognizing what we were trying to accomplish strategically, adjoined with their capabilities, it was a very obvious match for us.

What will be the main benefits to gyms and ABC customers?

First is it introduces expanded capabilities to ABC’s solution that are geared toward personal trainers and fitness professionals, and those activities that are organized through studios and training gyms. That’s an aspect of the market we have some exposure to, but this puts us in that space in a very significant and positive way.

Second is, to the notion of a comprehensive club management solution, it gives us personal training capabilities that can in fact be a module that is added to our club solution for our enterprise client.

The third is they have phenomenal mobile capabilities, so Trainerize’s mobile solutions will really serve to be a cornerstone of ABC’s go-forward mobile strategy.

What are your thoughts on the significance of mobile technology in light of COVID-19, where more people are engaging in virtual fitness?

It’s more important than ever — it’s critical. Interestingly, before COVID, we were very much focused on the need to allow our club operators to extend their capabilities beyond the physical club. So we were already focused on establishing mobile capabilities and the COVID crisis simply amplified it.

We now talk about this notion of the total fitness experience, and the total fitness experience to us is the right complement of facilities, personnel, programming and technology. And technology is the conduit that connects those other three elements of that total fitness experience together. We really believe mobile providing that connectivity to your members, wherever they are, is a critical aspect of future club success when you think of a post-COVID world.

What’s your vision or the partnership moving forward?

It’s inviting into the ABC portfolio of customers the personal training community — some 150,000 personal trainers, studios and training gyms [Trainerize] in fact supports. They’re a phenomenal entrepreneurial business. They have a phenomenal culture. And as we transform ABC, I’m equally excited about the positive effect Trainerize is going to have on ABC as a whole, in terms of where we’re trying to get to in leading this industry from an innovation perspective.