• F45’s explosive rise faltered post-IPO, with gym closures, stock drops, and legal battles.
• VRTUS has gained traction with a community-driven approach.
• Former F45 members are flocking to VRTUS, hinting it could be Australia’s next big fitness trend.

Bondi Beach is the veritable centre of the fitness universe, drawing in the beautiful body — or those aspiring to join their bronzed, Insta-ready ranks — for decades. One of the greatest success stories ever to come out of the Eastern Suburbs was F45, a fitness studio originally from Paddington that enjoyed a meteoric rise in Australia before expanding globally. What goes up, however, must come down…

What is VRTUS? And Why Has It Become A Smash Success?

Bondi is a merry-go-round of fitness fads, and few manage to hold the attention of its health-obsessed constituents for longer than a few months at a time. That’s why when something does stick around, you know it’s worth looking at a little more closely. VRTUS is one the few that has stuck the landing, and with membership numbers climbing and climbing fast, new locations are set to follow in their wake.

Promising “group fitness and personal training for the beginner to elite athlete”, VRTUS has quickly become a community hub that prides itself as much on its capacity to provide social connections and a subsequent mental health boost as it does on its strength and endurance training. Frankly, F45 never made this part of their mission to the same extent VRTUS does. Given how much the discourse around mental health has changed in the intervening decade, we can understand why but, suffice to say, VRTUS is making hay of this mantra.

Joining the swathe of fitness centres that are rightly putting recovery on the same pegging as workouts, their locations — currently, there is one on Bondi Road and another on Hall Street — both boast saunas, ice baths, and cafes alongside their very well-equipped gyms. Whether you’re looking to get a pump on, clear your mind, or meet some new people, this is the place to do it.

What Happened To F45?

F45 — the name, for anyone wondering, refers to the 45-minute group workouts offered in the gyms, consisting of high-intensity interval training (HIIT) combined with circuit training and functional training — opened its first studio in 2011 and was set for global expansion by 2015. New Zealand came first, followed by a massively successful push into India, marketed with the help of Indian Cricket legend VVS Laxman.

By 2019, the franchise was such a runaway success, with profit-churning doors on five continents, that Hollywood legend Mark Wahlberg and his eponymous investment group bought a minority stake in the business for a fruity A$672 million. An offshoot brand — FS8 — was launched, offering yoga-infused versions of the classic F45 workouts, and by July 2021 the F45 business was set to go public with an estimated value of A$2.1 billion.

It’s never ideal seeing other gyms close, especially in Bondi. Yes, they’re competitors, but it’s a densely populated area and we want everyone to succeed.

Rawson Kirkhope

The IPO appears to have been the beginning of the end for the franchise. Gym closures, falling stock prices, employee layoffs and a swathe of lawsuits are just a few of the issues that have beset the business. Rueing a loss of c. A$565 million across 2021 and 2022, it switched out its CEO and named Wahlberg as Chief Brand Officer in the hopes this would turn the ship around.

Unfortunately, on August 15, 2023, F45 Training Holdings decided to delist from the NYSE after its share price fell by 75% and the following year it endured a bruising legal battle with one of its most famous faces, David Beckham. The brand may still be alive, but it is certainly not well…

Is VRTUS catching the F45 member fallout?

While we have a hunch that VRTUS has the capacity to fill the metaphorical hole left behind by F45’s exit, a hunch is all we have. That’s why we reached out to VRTUS co-founder (and, rumour has it, local heartthrob) Rawson Kirkhope to see if our assumptions line up with what he and his team are seeing in the gym and on their bottom line. He was, as ever, humble and community-oriented in his response:

“It’s never ideal seeing other gyms close, especially in Bondi. Yes, they’re competitors, but it’s a densely populated area and we want everyone to succeed. We’ve picked up a fair few members, more at our Hall Street location compared to our Bondi Road location. They’ve adapted really well to our programming [because] they’ve all been coached really well and come to us with a very solid platform.”

It seems our suspicions may be based on more than vibes alone; VRTUS is picking up the newly homeless fitness fanatics of the Eastern suburbs and, while they’re not exactly short on competition, if they continue to keep community at the heart of what they do — which is no mean feat, especially if the brand has ambition to scale — then they could be set for very big things. Watch this space…