OYO Fitness is looking to benefit from the rapid growth in people looking for at-home fitness solutions with a piece of kit marketed as a fully portable personal gym, but with its sights also set on the gym market, HCM can reveal.

The start-up has used crowdfunding platform Kickstarter to bring the Nova Gym to the market and the funding campaign has already reached US$1.9m – making it the most funded fitness product in Kickstarter history in just 11 days.

The OYO Nova Gym has been designed to offer the user strength training for a range of muscle groups using SpiraFlex resistance – an innovation created by OYO founder Paul Francis.

As well as the at-home market, OYO will target the gym market, with a push to establish the equipment as a group exercise aid.

Francis invented the SpiraFlex resistance technology for NASA‘s Mission Critical programme to counteract astronaut bone and muscle loss caused by zero gravity.

He then licensed SpiraFlex technology to Nautilus and helped develop the Bowflex Revolution home gym, which has since achieved sales of over US$260m.

With the founding of OYO Fitness, Francis looking to incorporate SpiraFlex technology into fitness equipment that can be used anywhere.

The company has a pipeline of personal health and fitness equipment and has plans to expand international distribution into Europe, Asia and South America.