Peloton Acquires Gossamer Engineering To Boost Product Development

Earlier this year, fitness startup Peloton Interactive acquired Gossamer Engineering, which has designed devices for Google and Facebook.

Bloomberg reported that it is unknown how much Peloton paid for the business, but sources said that on May 16 Gossamer’s engineers in mechanical and electrical engineering, quality assurance, and technical program management joined Peloton, which declined to comment.

Gossamer was previously hired by Facebook to develop its Portal video chat device, and also worked with Google’s Advanced Technology and Products division.

The move comes as Peloton was hoping for an $8.2 billion valuation when it went public. Under the PTON ticker, the company planned to float 40 million shares of class A common stock on Nasdaq, priced at $29 per share. That means that Peloton was looking to raise $1.2 billion with the stock offering, nearly doubling its $4.2 billion valuation. The company’s prospectus showed that its subscription base went up to 511,202 from 245,667 in one year, and it has said in the past that it has 1.4 million members.

“You will see a lot of investors looking at this and saying what are the lessons learned from Uber and WeWork,” Michael Underhill, chief investment officer for Capital Innovations, who participated in the IPO, said at the time. “I wish them well, but I don’t think this will be a successful IPO.”

Later on that same month, the company ended its first day of trading down 11 percent from its set IPO price. Yet despite the weak reception, the company raised about $1.3 billion in the offering. Trading opened at $27 a share, giving Peloton a $7.7 billion valuation based on 286 million shares outstanding.

“We obviously wish the stock traded better on the first day, but we’re in it for the long haul and are excited for capital to continue to grow our business,” Peloton chief financial officer Jill Woodworth said at the time.