After mobile gaming, fitness. Guillaume Sztejnberg, Shreyas Rajagopalan, and Jason Akakpo have announced the launch of Noa, a new startup focused on digital wellness. Coinciding with the release of its first app, dedicated to fitness and Pilates, the company has secured €5 million in funding.
The round was led by Founders Future, with participation from Kima Ventures, Drysdale, Eden, and Intuition. Several business angels from leading companies in the mobile industry also joined the investment.
For Guillaume Sztejnberg and Shreyas Rajagopalan, this marks their third entrepreneurial venture. The two founders previously built AppTurbo, a European app discovery platform that reached €15 million in annual revenue. They later co-founded Green Panda Games, a mobile gaming studio that surpassed 800 million downloads in just two years before being acquired by Ubisoft in 2019.
With Noa, the three co-founders now aim to apply their expertise in consumer mobile applications to the fitness and wellness market. Their long-term ambition is to develop a portfolio of applications under the Noa brand, starting with fitness and Pilates.
An App Designed Primarily for Women
The development of Noa stemmed from a simple observation: many fitness applications still operate as content libraries, offering programs and workouts that are often disconnected from one another. According to the founders, this model is insufficient for fostering long-term engagement and helping users build lasting habits.
Instead, Noa seeks to provide structured fitness journeys in which each session is part of a continuous progression. The application also leverages artificial intelligence to personalize the experience, adapting programs to users’ goals and fitness levels.
The company presents its app as a digital studio, placing particular emphasis on audio guidance, visual design, and content quality. Programs are developed in collaboration with internationally recognized coaches specializing in Pilates, cardio training, and strength conditioning. While the experience was originally designed with women in mind, the application remains open to everyone.
“Noa Is Arriving at a Unique Moment”
For Founders Future, the investment thesis is based as much on the product as on the team behind it.
“The Noa team combines rare product expertise with a deep understanding of user behavior. With more than fifteen years of experience each in building consumer applications, the founders have mastered both product development and market dynamics,” said Louis Sautet, Partner at Founders Future.
The investor also believes that market conditions are particularly favorable.
“Noa is arriving at a unique moment: the digital fitness market remains largely open, while user expectations are rapidly shifting toward higher-quality and more personalized experiences,” he added.
The new funding will allow the startup to strengthen its team and accelerate the development of its application. Noa also plans to gradually expand its offering into other areas of wellness, including nutrition, meditation, sleep, and menstrual cycle tracking.
With this first application, Noa is not simply looking to establish a foothold in the online fitness market. The startup aims to build a broader wellness brand capable of bringing together multiple use cases within a premium mobile experience.
