Pulse Check: Issue No. 09 - Where Everything Starts to Overlap

The space isn’t moving in straight lines anymore. Finance is sitting inside wellness, wellness is showing up in events, events are borrowing from performance culture, and all of it is shaped by marketing and storytelling. The edges between categories are getting softer, and the things that used to feel separate now influence each other every week. You can see it in the races, in the funding rounds, in the way people gather, and in the kinds of products that are breaking through. This issue is a snapshot of that overlap, how performance, wellness, culture, and capital are starting to move as one ecosystem instead of a set of disconnected trends.

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With only three races left in the season, things start to feel a bit tighter. The travel adds up, the days get long, and every weekend feels like it matters a little more. And now the schedule moves to one of the most-watched stops on the calendar: Las Vegas. A night race on the Strip always adds a layer of unpredictability, which is part of why people pay attention to it.

For McLaren, there’s also some history here. Their setup didn’t come together the way they expected last year, and Andrea Stella, Mclaren team principal, has talked openly about the adjustments they’ve made since then. So there’s interest in whether those changes actually show up in this year’s performance.

They’re heading into the weekend with momentum on one side and pressure on the other. In Brazil, Norris took the win and Piastri finished fifth, which puts them in slightly different positions as the season winds down. And Vegas is the kind of race where things can shift quickly simply because of how the track behaves. It’s fast, it’s cold, and it doesn’t always reward preparation the way other circuits do.

So this weekend becomes more of a check-in than a prediction. Did the team actually solve the issues from last year. Does the Brazil result carry over. And what does this race tell us about where things stand heading into the final two rounds.

It’s one worth keeping an eye on.

Last weekend (Nov. 13–16), West Palm Beach hosted the Eudēmonia Summit, a three-day gathering centered on longevity, health optimization, and the changing landscape of wellbeing. One of the biggest additions this year was the launch of the Health Innovation Lab, an executive track built in partnership with Fitt Insider to bring founders, investors, and operators into the same room to talk about where health tech is heading next. The conversations ranged from metabolic health to recovery to the realities of building companies in a space that moves fast but still requires real scientific grounding.

Over the weekend, Bill, Willpower’s CEO, was on the ground meeting with the people shaping the next decade of performance and wellness. Conversations with leaders like Jonathan Leary (Remedy Place), Courtney McHugh (Amplifye), Edward Hertzman (Athletech News), Anthony Vennare (Fitt Insider), Chris Minor (Aion), Eric Litman (Aescape), and Maarten Bodewes (Loop) all pointed to the same conclusion:

Longevity has moved from the margins to the center. It’s becoming a cultural pillar, and the demand is shifting toward depth, clarity, and credible pathways forward.

Miami Art Week is known for the extensive partying and nightlife that goes well into the morning, the kind of energy that doesn’t usually pair with recovery or routine. But like everything else in the cultural landscape, it’s starting to shift. There’s a growing demand for wellness-centered events and networking, and the calendar is beginning to reflect that. The Wellness Oasis, presented by Chase, will return this year on Dec 2-3 with programming built around movement, mental health, recovery, and nutrition, bringing brands like ARMRA, Hyperice, Kohler, and Ammortal into the mix. What’s interesting is how naturally this fits now. Even during a week known for excess, people are carving out time for things that actually make them feel better. It’s not the “squeeze in a hotel gym workout before dinner” version of wellness anymore, it’s becoming part of the main event.

For brands, the Las Vegas Grand Prix is one of the strongest visibility plays of the year. F1 has this unique ability to sit at the intersection of sport, brands, entertainment, and performance, and we saw a lot of that firsthand during our own F1 week. There’s more flexibility in how you show up, so much of it comes down to positioning and the role you choose to play in the weekend.

That’s why it’s interesting to see Peloton in the mix. The brand hasn’t had the same traction it once did post-pandemic, and a lot of its recent efforts have felt more like quiet recalibration than headline moments. Bringing live classes to the Strip, recording content on-site, and building an F1 collection for members reads as a more intentional move. It puts Peloton back in front of a wide, engaged audience at a time when attention is hard to win, and it’s a small but apparent indicator of what they may be working toward behind closed doors.

Orangetheory and HYROX announced a training collaboration across select studios, which feels like another signal of how performance is showing up in new places. HYROX has been steadily building a global race format that people can actually train for, and Orangetheory has a massive footprint of members who already think in terms of progression and measurable output. Putting those two worlds together makes sense. It gives OTF a fresh entry point into the performance space and introduces HYROX to a much broader, more general-fitness audience. And after hearing HYROX Chief Growth Officer Douglas Gremmen in the hot seat at our Catalyst Series last week, it’s clear the brand isn’t just growing, it’s expanding its ecosystem in intentional ways. This partnership is another layer of that.

Check out the Catalyst Series: Capitalizing on the Future of Wellness Recap Here

Wearables have largely operated outside the formal healthcare data system up until now, but that’s starting to shift. A new bill could push devices like WHOOP and Oura into territories where regulations such as HIPAA matter more. When wearables begin offering advanced features, ECG readings, blood-pressure insights, they move closer to “medical device” status rather than just “fitness gadget.” For brands and consumers, it raises the bar on trust, data governance, and accuracy, while also opening the door for deeper integration with healthcare in a way the category hasn’t fully stepped into yet.

Functional-beverage brand TRIP just raised $40 million in a growth round led by Coefficient Capital and backed by cultural investors like Joe Jonas, Alessandra Ambrosio, Ashley Graham, and Paul Wesley. The raise values the business around $300 million. TRIP has built a strong foothold as a calming beverage brand, adaptogen- and botanical-infused drinks positioned as a “daily reset” that fits into people’s routines as an alternative to alcohol or sugar-heavy options. The brand is already in more than 10,000 U.S. retail doors including Whole Foods, Sprouts, and Soho House, and 50,000 globally, which gives this raise real acceleration behind it.

Cymbiotika secured $25 million in new seed funding this November, on top of a $30 million debt raise last year. The brand has grown quickly by focusing on bioavailable supplements, liquids, liposomal blends, and single-serve packets designed to absorb more effectively than traditional pills, and it’s resonating. The newest round brings in investors from music, sports, and business, including The Weeknd, Post Malone, Daymond John, and Nyjah Huston, and will support the company’s first major brand campaign and its rollout into Target stores nationwide. Last year’s debt financing helped Cymbiotika enter the Canadian market and upgrade its infrastructure and automation, laying the groundwork for this next chapter.

Taken together, these raises show where capital is flowing: toward wellness brands that sit at the intersection of functionality, routine, and cultural relevance. Investors aren’t just backing “better for you” products, they’re backing brands that can live in people’s everyday lives and hold up under real scrutiny.