This week, Meta announced a remarkable change of heart for the future of its Supernatural fitness service: Three years after spending a reported $400 million on its acquisition, Supernatural is being spun out into a standalone, independently-owned company.
This marks just the latest twist for Supernatural. When Meta first announced its acquisition of Supernatural in late 2021, it was banking on the app being a new flywheel for growth of its VR ecosystem. Early signs were promising: Many users discovered the app while looking for alternatives to regular gym visits during the pandemic, and the app was popular with women in particular, adding a much-needed gender balance to Quest’s user base.
However, the acquisition got push-back from regulators, with the FTC suing Meta over antitrust concerns. Meta eventually prevailed in that lawsuit some 16 months later. By then, working out at home had lost some of its luster. What’s more, the user base of Meta’s VR headsets was shifting towards teens and tweens who were interested in free-to-play games – not paid fitness subscriptions.
Meta all but pulled the plug on Supernatural at the beginning of this year when it laid off a majority of the team working on the service, including every single trainer. The push-back from existing users was swift, and seemingly helped convince the company to give Supernatural another chance.
The service’s founders are now bringing its trainers and other employees back, with the promise of launching a new version of the Supernatural app on Quest headsets this fall. However, transforming Supernatural into a sustainable standalone business won’t be easy, and will require the company to give up on some of the perks that came with being part of Meta.
Chief among them: Meta lowered the subscription price for the service when it acquired Supernatural to $10 a month. The newly-independent Supernatural will go back to a $20 per month subscription price tag, it announced Wednesday.
Whether that’s enough to actually turn Supernatural profitable remains to be seen. Then again, if anyone manages this feat, it may well be an app that many of its users have credited with literally changing their lives.
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