Whoop (company)
 | |
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Wearable technology |
| Founded | 2012 |
| Founder | Will Ahmed |
| Headquarters | Boston, Massachusetts |
Key people |
|
| Website | whoop.com |
Whoop (presented as WHOOP) is a U.S.-based company specializing in wearable technology, with its headquarters situated in Boston, Massachusetts. The company’s flagship offering is a fitness tracking device designed to monitor metrics such as strain, recovery, and sleep, primarily serving athletes and fitness-focused users. This device has gained recognition for its utility in professional sports performance monitoring and health management.
Elite athletes including football star Cristiano Ronaldo, basketball legend LeBron James, golf champion Rory McIlroy, and swimmer Michael Phelps frequently utilize the Whoop band. Its data-centric methodology aids users in optimizing athletic performance and gaining critical health insights, contributing to its expanding presence within the wearable fitness sector.
Product
The initial Whoop 1.0 was introduced in 2015, with subsequent iterations released in 2016 and 2019. The Whoop 4.0 model, launched in 2021, incorporates enhanced battery technology developed by Sila Nanotechnologies, substituting traditional graphite anodes with silicon to increase energy capacity. This version includes a detachable knit strap and a novel charging mechanism featuring a waterproof battery pack that charges via USB-C and wirelessly powers the sensor, allowing users to wear the device continuously even while charging.
This wearable gathers information on sleep patterns, heart rate variability, resting heart rate, and respiratory rate to calculate a daily recovery percentage ranging from 0% to 100%, which helps users balance exertion with rest periods. On March 29, 2023, Whoop launched a Stress Monitor capability that evaluates daily stress through heart rate variability and resting heart rate metrics, offering tailored breathwork exercises developed in collaboration with Dr. Andrew Huberman.
In September 2023, the company introduced "Whoop Coach," an AI-driven personalized health and fitness assistant powered by OpenAI that provides interactive coaching through conversational engagement. In 2025, Whoop publicly contested the FDA concerning its blood pressure monitoring feature, arguing against what it perceived as regulatory overreach.
Unlike many competitors, Whoop devices do not include screens or physical buttons; all user data is accessed exclusively via a dedicated smartphone application compatible with Android and Apple operating systems. The company operates on a subscription-based model requiring a monthly fee; tracking functionality ceases without an active subscription. As noted by Time magazine, the device’s five sensors collect roughly 100 megabytes of user data daily, delivering comprehensive insights favored by professional athletes.
History
Whoop was established in 2012 by Will Ahmed, then a student-athlete at Harvard University, with the goal of providing athletes detailed analytics on fitness and recovery processes. Ahmed collaborated with fellow Harvard students John Capodilupo and Aurelian Nicolae to develop the initial prototype within Harvard Innovation Labs. In August 2021, the company secured $200 million in funding from SoftBank Vision Fund, which valued Whoop at $3.6 billion.
As of November 2022, Will Ahmed continues as CEO; Aurelian Nicolae holds the position of director of mechanical engineering; Jaime Waydo succeeded John Capodilupo as CTO that same month. Antonio Bertone joined as chief marketing officer in 2018 after previously serving as CMO at PUMA USA.
Among Whoop’s investors are SoftBank Group, the National Football League Players Association, along with prominent athletes such as Kevin Durant, Patrick Mahomes, and Eli Manning. The brand name "Whoop" originates from a phrase Ahmed used prior to his college athletic competitions.
Sports
Whoop has gained approval as a fitness tracking device from leading professional sports leagues and their associated labor unions, such as CrossFit, the Ladies Professional Golf Association,Major League Baseball, the National Football League Players Association, the Women’s Tennis Association, and the PGA Tour. This recognition underscores Whoop’s deliberate focus on high-performance sports sectors, boosting its brand prominence and expanding its market presence.
Elite athletes including swimmer Michael Phelps, basketball star LeBron James, and golfers like Rory McIlroy, Nelly Korda, Tiger Woods, and Justin Thomas prefer this device. Additionally, MLB players such as Wade Miley and Brandon Woodruff also endorse it. These affiliations strengthen Whoop’s market position by linking its technology to superior performance monitoring and recovery insights.
Back in 2017, NBA players such as DeAndre Jordan covertly utilized Whoop devices during games despite league prohibitions, illustrating a strong appetite for sophisticated biometric data even under regulatory constraints.
Indian cricket luminary Virat Kohli notably sported Whoop during the 2023 ICC Men's Cricket World Cup, marking a significant expansion of the brand into international and emerging sports markets.
In May 2024, football superstar Cristiano Ronaldo became an investor and global ambassador for Whoop, a strategic partnership aimed at amplifying the company’s global reach and accelerating business development through high-profile celebrity endorsement.
_01_(cropped2).jpg)
Covid-19
In June 2020, PGA Tour golfer Nick Watney noticed an unusual increase in his respiratory rate via his Whoop app despite lacking other COVID-19 symptoms, leading to a positive diagnosis. This event prompted the PGA Tour to collaborate with Whoop, supplying devices to all golfers and caddies to aid in virus mitigation efforts.
Later that year, in December 2020, PGA Tour winner Scott Stallings observed irregularities in his heart rate variability, resting heart rate, and respiratory rate through his Whoop app prior to testing positive for COVID-19. Stallings initially adopted Whoop to enhance sleep quality following sinus surgery.
During 2020, Whoop partnered with researchers from Central Queensland University to validate its technology’s capability to detect COVID-19 by monitoring changes in respiratory patterns. Their algorithm successfully identified 80% of confirmed cases by the third day of symptoms and detected 20% of infections up to two days before symptom onset, highlighting considerable promise for early viral detection.