ClassPass: 53% of Staff Laid Off or Furloughed

Category: fitness and wellness
Pandemic-layoff role: Deepest-cut ranking company
Last updated: 2026-11-01

In the archive

Article: How 41 Companies Handled Pandemic Layoffs

Founders, executives and investors

Payal Kadakia founded ClassPass, which launched in 2012, and was its chief executive at launch. Fritz Lanman was CEO by 2021 and led the company into its sale to Mindbody. TechCrunch reported that a funding round led by Temasek financed a large international expansion and that ClassPass was most recently valued at $1 billion before the deal.

Business before the pandemic

Kadakia's first version let people book single classes from a range of studios and gyms. The company then moved to monthly subscriptions that bought a set number of classes, and later to a virtual currency with variable pricing, so studios could charge more for popular instructors and peak hours. Subscribers could book yoga, barre, pilates, boxing, indoor cycling and gym access.

What the pandemic did to the business

ClassPass sold subscribers credits to spend at other people's studios and gyms, so when they shut, its product shut with them. A Change.org petition the company had started by March 25, 2020 said that in the previous two weeks "80-90% of ClassPass' 30,000 partners across 30 countries have temporarily closed for business."

For members, ClassPass stopped billing. Its help page in late April 2020 said it was "pausing membership billing in all impacted markets, allowing full credit rollover until local studios and in-person classes become bookable again." It also waived the 12-hour late-cancellation fee for members who asked. The same page said ClassPass would "continue paying our partners for any missed classes or late cancellations, regardless of any fee waive policies we enact." A waived fee did not cost the studio its payment. By November 2020 the page said billing was paused in "nearly all markets," that returning members would pay no reactivation fee, and that a digital-only plan, ClassPass at Home, was available. By February 2022 the offer was a one-month pause.

Pandemic-relief role: programs for studios, and no PPP loan

For studios, ClassPass ran three programs, two of them with end dates. Livestream classes from more than 500 studios could be booked without a subscription, and the help page said 100% of the purchase price would go to partners "until June 1"; the partner site said ClassPass would collect no commission on them until May 31. Members could send cash to a studio through a "Give" button, and ClassPass said it would match contributions "up to USD $1 million" as part of a Partner Relief Fund. It later said the contributions ran through June 1, 2020. Its FAQ added that contributions were not tax deductible and "may be taxable to the recipient." None of its FAQ pages gives the amount ClassPass paid in matches. The third program was the Change.org petition, which asked governments for rent relief, financial help for the workforce and "2020 tax holidays" for health and wellness businesses. The company later said it drew over 57,000 signatures.

ClassPass is private, and SBA's PPP loan data lists no borrower under its name. Its lenders do file with the SEC. TriplePoint Venture Growth BDC reported two $15 million ClassPass loans from 2019 at prime plus 5%. On March 31, 2020 it valued them at $29.285 million against a cost of $29.850 million. By June 30 both loans carried a 10.25% interest-rate floor that the March schedule did not show.

A second fund, TriplePoint Private Venture Credit, began investing on May 27, 2020 by buying a starting portfolio of loans and warrants originated through TriplePoint Capital. Its first schedule lists a $5 million ClassPass loan with that acquisition date, on the same terms as the June 30 loans, and a warrant for 14,085 ClassPass preferred shares. The filings do not say when the loan was first made.

TriplePoint Venture Growth's September 30, 2021 schedule still showed $29.433 million outstanding. On October 13, 2021 Mindbody announced it would buy ClassPass and said ClassPass usage was "at one-hundred-and-ten percent of pre-COVID usage for subscribers who have gone back to class." By December 31, 2021 neither fund listed a ClassPass loan, only warrants; TriplePoint Venture Growth's, which cost $281,000, was carried at $151,000.

Layoffs

On April 2, 2020 a ClassPass spokesperson told Yahoo Finance that "53% of ClassPass employees were impacted — 22% of our team has been laid off and 31% of our team has been furloughed." ClassPass's New York WARN notice listed 146 temporary layoffs at its 275 7th Avenue office and California's list 35 more in San Francisco; in June 2020, 17 of the New York layoffs and 8 in San Francisco were made permanent from July 1. How ClassPass handled layoffs →

After the first shock

Mindbody, the studio-booking software company majority-owned by Vista Equity Partners, announced on October 13, 2021 that it would acquire ClassPass. Mindbody's chief executive, Josh McCarter, told TechCrunch it was an all-stock deal. Alongside it, a group led by Sixth Street put $500 million into the combined company. McCarter said the wellness industry "continues to rebound from COVID-19 related closures." Mindbody completed the purchase on October 15, 2021. Lanman became president of ClassPass and the Mindbody Marketplace, and ClassPass's CFO and COO, Tom Aveston, became CFO of the combined company.

Where the company is now

ClassPass sits inside Playlist, the parent brand of Mindbody, Booker and ClassPass, with Lanman as Playlist's chief executive. On January 15, 2026 Playlist agreed to merge with EGYM, a maker of smart gym equipment and the Wellpass corporate-fitness platform. The deal came with $785 million in new equity led by Affinity Partners, with Vista Equity Partners, Temasek and L Catterton participating, and valued the combined business at $7.5 billion. Playlist announced the closing on March 31, 2026, with EGYM becoming a Playlist subsidiary alongside Mindbody, Booker and ClassPass (Playlist release, March 31, 2026). The company says the group spans more than 30 countries, more than 88,000 venues listed on ClassPass and over 40,000 Mindbody-powered businesses. The $7.5 billion is the value of the combined group, not of ClassPass.

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