Whoop Plans to Double Size of Boston Headquarters Ahead of IPO

Whoop is growing rapidly following a March fundraising round that valued the company at $10.1 billion. It plans to hire 600 people this year, a roughly 75% boost to its headcount

(Bloomberg) — Whoop Inc., the maker of popular screenless fitness trackers, plans to roughly double the size of its Boston headquarters, boosting a city struggling to grab a bigger piece of the artificial intelligence boom.

Whoop plans to lease 107,000 square feet of office space in a building next to the company’s current headquarters near Fenway Park, a spokesperson said. The expansion will help support the company’s future growth and reflects its belief in the local talent pool, according to Chief Executive Officer Will Ahmed. The additional space can accommodate 1,000 employees. The lease hasn’t yet been finalized. 

Whoop is growing rapidly following a March fundraising round that valued the company at $10.1 billion. It plans to hire 600 people this year, a roughly 75% boost to its headcount, as it works to further integrate AI into its health and wellness monitoring tools and to expand internationally. Whoop is on track for an IPO in roughly 18 months, Ahmed said in an interview at Bloomberg’s Boston office on Tuesday, in line with the timetable he’s previously shared. 

Whoop is one of the largest office tenants in Kenmore Square, an area that’s also adjacent to Boston University and several of the city’s research hospitals that has seen significant development over the past decade. If finalized, the lease would be one of the largest in Boston’s office market to be signed this year.

Having a Boston headquarters gives the company an advantage in employee retention versus startups based in New York or San Francisco, Ahmed said. “Boston’s been underrated in regards to a lot of what it can provide an up and coming company,” he said. The city breeds “missionaries” who stick with an employer because they believe in its mission, a contrast to the mercenary mindset of many in Silicon Valley, he said. 

“The folks that get a little caught up in the hype cycle of a tech company, or get too caught in the valuation speak or what’s en vogue, they are less likely to stick it out through some of the more challenging periods,” Ahmed said. 

Whoop is one of the leaders of the Massachusetts AI Coalition, a group of companies and investment firms organized this year that’s seeking to stem the westward migration of startup founders educated at the state’s elite universities like Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Of the 20 most valuable venture-backed US AI companies as of this spring, none are headquartered in Massachusetts, even though half had co-founders who attended MIT or Harvard.

“It’s hard to know at an early stage if a company is great, but you want to create an environment where they can continue to flourish,” Ahmed said, pointing to the importance of access to office space, capital and networking. “People are waking up around here being like, ‘We’ve got to do a little bit more. We’re taking for granted that we have such great talent here.’”

Of the nearly 400 people Whoop has hired so far this year, more than 70% are for Boston-based roles. That includes new C-level hires like Chief Marketing Officer Dirk-Jan “DJ” van Hameren, a former Nike Inc. executive who relocated from that company’s headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon. The company requires its Boston employees to work from the office at least four days a week, Ahmed said. 

Boston’s Fenway neighborhood, where Whoop is based, had the highest office vacancy of any neighborhood in the city as of the end of the second quarter at 29.2%, according to CBRE Group Inc. data. The citywide vacancy rate was 18.7%.

“CEOs have to play a role” in revitalizing downtowns, he said. Whoop employees “are going to be showing up in Boston in the heart of the city. And guess what they’re going to be doing for breakfast and lunch and dinner and happy hour? They’re going to be going out and spending.”

Whoop is finding more success persuading candidates to move to Boston, according to Ahmed, who touts the city’s low crime rates, hospitals and schools.

“If they’re going to be turned off by the weather, they may or may not be ready for the hard things we’re going to ask them to do,” Ahmed said.

Whoop is facing increased competition from the likes of Alphabet Inc.’s Google, which released a $100 screenless Fitbit Air wearable in May while giving customers the option to pay $10 a month for extra features. Whoop, which doesn’t charge for hardware, requires membership plans that start at $200 a year. Ahmed says he sees Whoop as a premium product whose design and technology come at a cost.

Whoop is pushing past its traditional fitness tracking into more general health offerings, including a partnership with the Natural Cycles birth control app. Its blood pressure tracking tool drew pushback from the US Food and Drug Administration last year, which initially deemed it an unapproved medical device before ultimately dropping the complaint in June.