Frame

The feel-good disruptive fitness brand with a highly engaged community of Framers seeking fun fitness classes.

Invested £6M in 2017. Exited in 2022

While the UK’s £5bn fitness industry today offers a dizzying wealth of choice, back in 2008 the fitness experience was an entirely different proposition. Cardio consisted of pounding a treadmill. Weights rooms were out of bounds for non-Olympians. Membership was purposely inflexible, tying gym-goers into 12-month minimum length contracts.

The model was out of shape and badly in need of an energy boost. Enter the boutique fitness brand Frame. Friends and former competitive athletes Pip Black and Joan Murphy had searched in vain for a gym or fitness studio in London that would give them the flexibility, variety, and fun they wanted. Realising it didn’t exist, they decided to create one themselves. The first Frame studio opened in Shoreditch in 2009.

Variety is central to the Frame proposition, born from Pip and Joan’s belief that it helps keep customers’ fitness routines fresh, engaging and better for the body. Classes include everything from the unforgettable ‘Kylie Butt Lift’ and ‘Bend It Like Barbie’ to the more meditative ‘Detox Yoga.’

As well as ripping up the rulebook on types of exercise, Frame was also an early pioneer in changing the way the sessions are provided. Out went the old membership model, in came the ‘drop in’ and pay-as-you-go Frame Card system, with bookings taken on a user-friendly mobile system.

Recognising that Frame had created an innovative, industry leading boutique fitness model, we invested £6m into Frame in 2017 to help the brand expand. At the time of investment there were four Frame sites in London (Shoreditch, King’s Cross, Victoria, and Queen’s Park) with further sites opening in Hammersmith, Angel, and Soho.