Growl's AI Boxing Bag Delivers A Knockout Fitness Experience

In a fitness market saturated with stationary bikes and rowing machines, French-founded startup Growl is landing a different kind of blow.

Emerging from stealth mode in December 2024 with $4.75 million in Seed funding, this Austin-based company with two French co-founders has reimagined the ancient boxing bag as a high-tech, AI-powered fitness coach designed for the home. Growl is entering the $110 billion U.S. fitness market to make boxing's transformative power accessible to families, not just gym enthusiasts.

Growl combines projection technology, infrared sensors, and 3D motion tracking to create what the founders describe as "a life-sized interactive coach" that feels physically present during workouts. Pre-sales begin in April 2025, and first deliveries are expected in early 2026. Growl's wall-mounted system offers everything from technical boxing instruction to yoga and strength training, all displayed on an impact-resistant surface that can withstand millions of punches.

Backed by Skip Capital (the private fund of Atlassian co-founder Scott Farquhar), former UFC Heavyweight Champion Ciryl Gane, and several notable French tech entrepreneurs, Growl represents the latest chapter in the globalization of French tech talent—with engineering based in Paris and commercial operations in Texas. The company aims to capture a share of the growing premium fitness market by targeting educated professionals over 35 who have "more money than time" but still want engaging, family-friendly workouts at home.

The Personal Journey Behind Growl

For CEO and co-founder Léo Desrumaux, Growl's mission stems from his own transformative experience with boxing. At 16, Desrumaux was kicked out of high school in France and moved to Appleton, Wisconsin as a foreign exchange student, barely speaking English.

"I landed there not speaking the language, I started to integrate through sports, which is like the natural bridge, where you don't need to speak necessarily," Desrumaux explained. "I started doing wrestling, and became obsessed with freestyle wrestling, and then MMA and boxing."

The experience was life-changing for the troubled teenager. "I literally found my way, my potential, and the tools to realize my potential through martial arts and through those sports," he said. "It's realizing that you're not made out of glass, that you can take a bunch but you can also hit back."

This personal transformation informs Growl's core mission. "There's a powerful saying that encapsulates it well, which is, 'Once you've wrestled or boxed, everything else in life is easy.' And I do think there's a true essence to that statement," Desrumaux said.

From Investment Insight to Innovative Product

Years later, while working in private equity in Paris, Desrumaux's professional and personal worlds collided: "The VC team one day was like, 'Oh, we're investing ten million into this Chinese-connected fitness company.' That's when it hit me: what if the boxing bag could become a coach?"

Desrumaux began researching the connected fitness industry, understanding "the size of the market, the level of product market fit, which is incredible in connected fitness, and the business model."

He recognized that boxing was underrepresented in a market dominated by cycling, rowing, and strength training. "I felt so strongly, so clearly, that boxing had so much power to bring to people," he said. "If you wanted to realize that power if you wanted to make it accessible to everyone at home, you had to turn the bag into a coach."

Desrumaux connected with Nicolas de Maubeuge, who had been building connected hardware for nearly a decade and had also taken up boxing to channel his hyperactive energy. Upon experiencing Desrumaux's proof-of-concept, de Maubeuge recognized its potential and co-founded the company in 2021

Reinventing the 3,000-Year-Old Boxing Bag

Growl's innovation starts with a fundamental redesign of the traditional boxing bag. "We didn't start with boxing. We started with the coach," said Desrumaux. "Our main, first and foremost thinking was, how do you recreate a life-size coach that feels like he's physically there with you?"

This led to a complete rethinking of the boxing bag's form factor. Instead of the traditional cylindrical shape, Growl features a flat surface against a wall with a 180-degree elliptical shape. This design provides "the circular feeling of a boxing bag, but also the ability to move around with your coach on a boxing bag, but still in a format that is very easy to integrate and use at home," according to Desrumaux.

Technological Innovations and Challenges

One of the biggest technical challenges was creating a durable interactive surface that could withstand millions of punches over years of use. After exploring various technologies, including LED and foldable screens, the team ultimately chose projection technology.

"Projection was our last choice, which is very interesting because we had all these assumptions about projections," Desrumaux says. "But in the end, it's just the perfect choice, because you cannot break light. You punch so hard that you don't see that you're hiding what's behind it."

The system uses a multi-angle three-motion tracking system with five cameras to track the user's movements in real-time, while an array of multi-directional time-of-flight infrared sensors makes the bag's surface interactive.

"When you come in and punch the bag, you break a light pattern, and we know where you're punching," said Desrumaux. "The whole technology is essentially based on light... which means the bag itself has no technology in it, which means you can punch it as hard as you want, you will never break it."

Market Strategy and Customer Targeting

Rather than targeting experienced boxers, Growl aims to bring boxing to everyone. "We are targeting not the 1% of people that go into a boxing gym and train and spar. We are targeting the 99% of people that would never walk into a boxing gym in the first place, but from whom the power of boxing can be equally transformative," Desrumaux said.

The company has identified its typical customers as adults over 35, college-educated with children, who have "more money than they have time" due to work, family, and social obligations.

Growl is positioned as a premium product, priced at approximately $150 per month on a 48-month plan, or $190 on a 36-month plan, with hardware and subscription included for unlimited family access.

The Family Focus

Unlike many fitness products designed for individual use, Growl targets the entire household. "You really serve a household. You don't serve a particular individual in connected fitness. So most connected fitness devices, you'll have between two to three people using the device at home," says Desrumaux.

This focus on family use has guided the product development, ensuring it works for different ages, skill levels, and fitness goals. The product offers workouts for ages 10 and up, including technical boxing, strength training, yoga, and flexibility exercises.

Priorities for 2025

As Growl moves toward commercialization, Desrumaux identified two main priorities for the next year.

"It's about the manufacturing process for the product. That's the big priority," he said. The company is working with Sam Bowen, former VP of Hardware Engineering at Amazon, Peloton, and Tonal, to navigate the complex manufacturing process.

The second priority is fine-tuning their marketing and messaging.

"We started showing the product to the world in December. So that's where we started getting feedback. That's when we started learning about our target audience," Desrumaux said.

Future Vision: AI-Generated Interactive Coaches

Even as the company pushes toward its commercial launch, the co-founders have bigger ambitions for Growl further down the road.

While Growl already incorporates AI for motion tracking and feedback, Desrumaux envisions a future where the coach is fully AI-generated, providing a completely personalized experience.

"At some point, you could start to think about turning the coach you're working with, not being a video that is recorded, but being a live, interacting, interactive trainer that knows how you're moving around the bag, that knows how you're punching on the bag, that knows what you like," he said. "You can recreate not just a coach that you work with, but a coach that is your personalized, fully interactive trainer, reacting with you in real-time, just like if you're paying $150 an hour."