The sportech Lapso Studios faces this year with growth prospects in a double direction. Founded in Barcelona in 2021, it plans to expand its spaces and also the disciplines it offers, now exclusively focused on indoor cycling in its premises on Diagonal Avenue, next to Francesc Macià. With the goal of revolutionizing the fitness market, the company will open a new 500-square-meter premises on Aribau Street in the summer, and will double the space of the Diagonal one. From its two studio-boutiques, Lapso's coaches will teach their characteristic indoor-cycling sessions, and also their two new disciplines: Lapso Barre and Lapso Funcional. Both will operate with the same pay-per-use system as the stationary bike sessions, and will also be marked by music, the dim light atmosphere, and the energy of the coaches.
With this growth, the company expects to double its workforce by the end of the year, going from the current 23 employees to 55. In addition, with the two premises and the three sports modalities, Lapso expects to reach around 120,000 check-ins of annual users, as detailed to The New Barcelona Post by the CEO and founder of Lapso Studios, Eugenia Llopart. This figure is one third above the 80,000 with which it closed 2023, a year in which the company invoiced 744,000 euros. 2023 was a year in which the company also closed a 1.5 million round that was led by La Vida es Chula, the family office of the founder of Desigual, Thomas Meyer.
In the 500 square meters of the Aribau premises, it will be possible to participate in both the brand's indoor cycling sessions, with a room for up to 50 people, and Lapso Funcional, with a space with a capacity for 30 people. This discipline, focused on strength training with the use of materials such as dumbbells and resistance bands, will be taught in an environment that will follow the line of indoor cycling. "We don't want to lose the essence of Lapso in everything we do," defends the company's product director, Javier Herrarte, who highlighted that the Functional sessions will also have a team of coaches who have been chosen through a selection process and who are trained for three months at the Lapso Academy.
The same applies to the future coaches of the Lapso Barre discipline. This modality will be offered from the expanded Diagonal location, which grows with the acquisition of the adjacent premises to 500 square meters. Barre, which comes from ballet, features the dance barre as a support for physical exercises that in Lapso will be combined with emotional work, music, and dark lights. "We will do a very Lapso Barre, to the rhythm of the music, with a lot of energy," Herrarte added. Inspired by classical dance, the coaches who will teach this discipline at Lapso will be professional dancers. The future coaches have been chosen through a selection process conceived "as a casting": more than 30 dancers attended the auditions, in which six were selected. "For us, the coaches are the most important thing," Herrarte added.
The company, which also promotes events such as indoor cycling sessions at the Bling Bling nightclub, has opted to expand its disciplines due to the demand from its users to diversify Lapso's range of offerings. To choose which new modalities to introduce while maintaining its model, "we traveled the world to find what would best fit our community." According to Herrarte, they looked to the world to locate the main players of boutique fitness, and traveled to the United Kingdom, France, the United States, and Mexico to research disciplines and how to adapt them to the Lapso style.
Mexico has not only played a role at this point in the company's trajectory. Llopart and Herrarte met precisely in Mexico, when both worked in respective cosmetics and perfumery companies: "We were competitors." As Herrarte recalls, they were united by sharing their country of origin and a passion for sports and for proposals like Lapso's current model. In fact, he ended up training as a coach for one of them and Llopart attended his classes. Years later, and given the absence of such initiatives in Barcelona, Llopart decided to found Lapso Studios with four other partners, to whom Herrarte later joined.
After the launch of the two new disciplines and after the two openings —which have required an investment they have declined to detail—, Lapso Studios prioritizes consolidating itself in Barcelona and taking its model to other cities, with Madrid and Valencia in its sights. Llopart plans to do so with controlled growth: "It will not be exponential through models like franchises, but rather it will be very careful." Once the company is consolidated in Spain, Llopart looks to other Southern European markets as a possible opportunity to export its model, which seeks not only physical well-being, but also emotional well-being. "What we are looking for is an experience that changes your day; that you leave renewed not only by exercising, but by making a mindset change," highlights Herrarte. And the company aims to achieve this through a proposal that combines exercise, music and energy to connect with the Lapso community and, above all, with oneself.