That didn’t take long. Less than a day after rebranding to Meta, the company formerly known as Facebook announced that it’s acquiring Within, a startup focused on fitness-related VR apps.
Within offers a variety of virtual reality experiences, but its flagship product is a workout app called Supernatural that is often described as a fitness-oriented take on the popular Beat Saber rhythm game thanks to its combination of musical exercises, expert coaching, and other features that complement its gamified approach to convincing people they should work out in VR.
Supernatural debuted on the Oculus Quest platform in April. Now it will outlive that platform—or at least its branding—as Meta prepares to replace the Oculus branding in 2022. Within CEO Chris Milk and head of fitness Leanne Pedante said in a blog post that “the Supernatural that you have helped shape, and the Supernatural that you have come to love, is here to stay.”
TechCrunch reports that Supernatural is set to continue operating under Meta’s Reality Labs division. Within’s staff will also collaborate with Meta’s existing workers, according to Within VP of Play Jason Rubin, who seems like he’s already preparing for the countless questions about how this acquisition could prevent other companies from thriving in the “metaverse.”
“Together we will also explore ways we can enhance future hardware to support VR fitness apps, encouraging other developers to bring new fitness experiences to VR,” Rubin said in a blog post. “We believe fitness will be a massive success in VR where multiple third party fitness apps can succeed.” (Meta doesn’t have the best track record when it comes to claims like that, however.)
Neither Meta nor Within have revealed additional details about the acquisition. TechCrunch says that Within has raised over $50 million in funding since it was founded in 2015. Presumably the venture capital firms that backed the startup will see a healthy return on investment given Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s stated commitment to developing his vision for the metaverse.
