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Gym owner raises $3.5M to scale fast-growing gym chain
He’ll open 7 more gyms by the end of next year.
John Franklin
June 06, 2025
What’s up Gym World?
You’ve heard Dane McCarthy from The Athletic Clubs talk about:
His Gen Z gym concept where members train in squads
How to build a world-class community around your brand
Now he’s back to tell us how he raised $3.5 million to scale from 8 to 15 locations by the end of 2026.
Here’s what happened.
Why Dane decided to raise capital
The Athletic Clubs are a series of gyms in NYC that launched in 2020. They:
Target a younger clientele
Offer squad training, where members train with the same 20 people twice a week at a set time with a dedicated coach
Cost $299/month and include squad training, run club, and drop-in classes
Have 6 locations, with 2 more on the way
Back in 2023, one of Dane’s gyms was generating $80K a month from a 1,200 sq ft basement.
Dane bootstrapped all 8 locations. Now he wants to grow faster.
Each gym currently runs 12 squads. Dane’s goal is to reach 100 locations by 2030.
He could keep doing what most experienced gym owners do—open a new location, get it profitable, then repeat.
But bootstrapping is challenging because:
It takes time to generate enough profit from one gym to fund the next
Limited cash flow makes it hard to open new locations quickly or compete for prime real estate
Taking on big loans leads to large interest payments, while equity financing gives you more flexibility since you’re not making monthly repayments
Bootstrapping is slower, but it gives you more control and optionality. You can prioritize profit, pause expansion when needed, and never sell if you don’t want to.
Equity financing, on the other hand, gave Dane the chance to:
Grow faster without waiting on profits from existing gyms
Bring experienced investors on board who’ve scaled businesses before
Hire a seasoned operator with a track record of rapid expansion
So that’s exactly what he did.
Founders raise capital when they want to grow fast, dominate a market, and eventually sell to private equity. This usually means prioritizing growth over profit and being willing to run at a loss to scale quickly.
Once you bring on outside investors, the expectation is constant growth. If the business succeeds, the payout can be huge. If it doesn’t, investors are paid first and the founder might walk away with nothing.
What it took to raise $3.5M
Dane raised $3.5 million to grow The Athletic Clubs. You might not be looking for millions—but if you’re thinking about raising capital to scale your gym, these three steps helped Dane make it happen and could help you too:
Step 1: Get guidance from someone who's done it
Dane has always had a clear vision for where he wants to take The Athletic Clubs. So from the start, he’s been intentional about learning from people who’ve successfully scaled fitness brands.
One of those people is Ann Mahlum, founder of Solidcore.
If you haven’t heard of her, Ann turned $175K in personal savings into a national Pilates brand. After 10 years in business, she sold the company for around $100 million.
Dane started by cold calling and emailing her. Eventually, he connected with her through a mentorship platform. Over time, they built a strong relationship, and she became a mentor who gave Dane a proven playbook for:
Raising capital
Scaling quickly
Building a concept investors want to back
If you’re trying to grow your gym, it helps to surround yourself with people who’ve already done what you’re trying to do.
Gym Worlders Joe Meglio and John Farkas both looked up to Rick Mayo, founder of Alloy Personal Training. They built relationships with him—and now run highly profitable gyms of their own.
Step 2: Be transparent about the business
Investors want to put their money into businesses with steady revenue and strong leadership. So if you’re looking for capital, Dane says you need to be open and honest about your numbers.
They want to know:
How the business is doing
What the trends look like
Where the risks and opportunities are
Plenty of fitness franchisees have sold to private equity and built 8-figure wealth. Here’s a story about one gym owner aiming to do the same in the next 5 years.
In Dane’s case, he pitched The Athletic Clubs to several institutional investors. And spoiler: He didn’t end up working with any of them.
But the conversations were still valuable. Dane says they shared benchmarks that helped him understand what private equity firms look for in a gym:
Retention: Top gyms keep 60–70% of members after 12 months
Churn: Monthly churn should be around 5.5% or lower
Profitability: Gyms should aim for at least 30% profit margins. The best operators are closer to 50%
FYI: The Athletic Clubs were exceeding these margins—but Dane decided to explore private investors.
Step 3: Find people who believe in what you're building
Dane wants to grow fast, but not if it means sacrificing the quality. So when it came time to raise money, he knew the right investors would be people who:
Knew the brand
Believed in the long-term vision
Cared about the member experience
And sure enough, one of those people was Ann Mahlum.
Dane had always been transparent with Ann about The Athletic Clubs, so she understood the business better than anyone. When she heard he was raising capital, she stepped in as the lead investor.
Once word got out, more people showed interest.
In the end, Dane raised the rest of the capital from high-net-worth members who already knew the gym and believed in its future.
It’s the same idea when gym owners open a new location or start franchising. As we’ve seen on Gym World, the best candidates are often your own members—they know the brand, believe in what you're doing, and want to be part of it.
The expansion plan
Now that Dane has $3.5 million in funding, the goal is to expand into new markets and grow to 15 locations by the end of next year.
To help, he’s brought on a new President and COO with experience scaling fitness brands like Xponential and D1 Sports Training.
Let’s say it costs $500,000 to open one gym. If Dane kept bootstrapping, he’d have to wait years to earn back the investment from one location before opening the next. With outside capital, he can open several gyms at once and speed up the entire process.
Instead of building from scratch, Dane’s looking to partner with existing gyms that:
Have a solid lease in a great neighborhood
Have an established community
Are run by owners ready to move on
The ideal gym:
Is in an area with a younger population (ages 25–35)
Has an established membership base (100+ active members)
Is between 1,500–2,500 sq ft
Has 10 ft ceilings
Pays no more than $15,000/month in rent
If you know of a gym that fits this description, Dane wants to hear from you. You can email him at [email protected] or send him a message on Instagram.
If all goes well, Dane plans to raise more capital and eventually grow to 100 locations by 2030. But for now, he’s focused on:
Preserving the culture
Championing the brand
Balancing his full-time job in finance
that’s all
j
📣 P.S. If you thought this was helpful, a fellow gym owner probably will too. Share it!