The Katalyst Training System applies cutting-edge EMS (electrical muscle stimulation) technology to a lightweight, portable suit and pairs it with guided workouts from its mobile app. Throughout the workout, the Katalyst Suit delivers low-frequency impulses to each major muscle group. These impulses imitate the basic mechanisms your brain uses to activate muscles to help you train more efficiently, effectively, and safely. Katalyst is FDA cleared for home use in the US.
Brendan Kennedy, the CEO of Mont y Mer, which is the parent company of Katalyst, explains the business model that he believes will allow this technology to reach more people around the world. Brendan speaks with Carol Massar, Tim Stenovec and Bloomberg Pursuits Editor Chris Rovzar on Bloomberg Businessweek Daily.
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Episode Transcript
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News. You're listening to Bloomberg
Business Week with Carol Masser and tim Stenoveek on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Well, it's the jolt that tickles your muscles and suit
it up in the Catalyst Jen for you might look
a bit like one of the Avengers. It's pretty cool.
It is all part of looking and feeling your best.
As Bloomberg Pursuits editor Chris Rouser writes about the new
issue of Bloomberg Business Week with Pursuits devoted to the
pursuit of wellness. Here with Morris Chris Rouser along with
Brendan Kennedy, the CEO of Monte Mayer, it's the owner
(00:37):
of Catalyst, and they both are here in our studio. Welcome, Welcome,
a great Friday story. First of all, I got to
start with you, Chris, How did this come on your radar?
I mean, I know you are always kind of the
king when it comes to things that you can try
to feel better to look back.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
Yeah, I'm a fitness person, I'm a wellness person. I'll
try anything.
Speaker 4 (00:56):
Once.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
If you asked me to do a form of exercise
with you, I will do it. So I've done everything,
solid core, phyzeke fifty seven, zoomba, you name it, I've
done it, hot yoga, hotter yoga.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
And something in a chair yo.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
Yes, yes, there was briefly a PILATEUS studio in Manhattan
called Shaes twenty three because you did all the exercises
in a chair and it was on twenty third Street.
So at the beginning of the year, I just was
thinking about how overwhelming wellness has gotten. There's endless podcasts,
The Manisphere podcasts are just like telling you so many
different things every week to do. There's businesses where you
(01:28):
can spend like seven thousand dollars a month where you
go and you get you know, go get tested for
all this stuff every month and you get AI to
tell you what to eat and what to exercise. Just
feels very overwhelming. And I thought, Okay, what's the response
to that. What is my response to that.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
I want to cheat, I want to cheat code.
Speaker 4 (01:45):
I want an easy way out. I want to hack.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
And so we got the whole pursuit seemed together to
think to like go out and do research and figure
out what like the hot wellness hacks right now that
makes it easier for you because at the end of
the day, what you really need to do is exercise.
You need to sleep, you need to talk to people,
and you need to eat. Well, that's basically all you
need to do. So like, what are the things that
can sort of hack your way into doing those more easily?
And so as I was doing my research, I discovered
(02:09):
the Catalyst suit, which is an EMS suit. It's a
stimsuit like you like physical therapists use after you get
an injury. They kind of zap your muscles with electricity
and it encourages your muscles to work harder, more of
it tenses up, and then it heals. It heals stronger.
And so that technology is now a suit that you
can wear and you can do workouts and it like
(02:30):
supercharges your workouts.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
Okay, I know the guy who owns the company is
sitting right here, but I'm still going to put you
on the spot, Crisp, because I see technology like this
and I'm like, yeah, does it actually work?
Speaker 4 (02:39):
I have to tell you it actually works.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
You're not just saying.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
Muscles through my blazer, but you see, but it really
totally works. I did it for six months after having
a pair of injuries. I had foot surgery. You guys,
remember I fractured my elbow. I was like out of
the gym for months. I felt kind of bummed about it,
and it really got me back going. Yeah, you really
see a results that it helped my posture I lost
to gain muscle.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
All right, So Brendan, come on in. You are the
owner of Catalyst. Talk to us about this device, kind
of how it came to be, and tell us a
little bit about the business.
Speaker 4 (03:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (03:11):
So I joined EMS about four years ago, and I
was a little skeptical at first too. My wife had
used it about seven years ago.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
EMS is electric electric electrical muscle stimulation exactly.
Speaker 5 (03:23):
I'm just like a doctor or a physical therapist will
put STEM on you to heal a muscle. It's the
same time technology and doctors have been using it for
six years. If you go to Europe, there are ms
studios where there's thousands of them where people will go
in and work out. I went in skeptically and tried
it about four years ago during COVID and it's amazing
(03:47):
for me. It compresses time. I can get two hour
workout workout that would normally take me two hours in
a gym. I can do it in twenty minutes, and
it's a whole body workout. It hits a little muscles
in your back that you you might miss in a
gym or skip leg day. Is your whole body, twenty
six pads at once, and it stimulates your muscle. Just
(04:09):
like your brain sends a signal to your muscle to contract,
the suit sends the same muscles, the same signals, and
it hits ninety percent of your muscles.
Speaker 4 (04:20):
And so it's amazing and.
Speaker 5 (04:22):
It works, it's efficient, it's fast, it's safe, and it
compresses time for me.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
So you were a client, I was a class who
became an investor, and now you're the owner.
Speaker 4 (04:34):
Yes, it's something I'm really passionate about.
Speaker 5 (04:37):
I use it three days a week, so twenty minutes
each time, basically an hour a week. That little prep,
a little cleanup, but compared to changing and driving to
a gym and working out for two hours, I can
do it in twenty minutes.
Speaker 4 (04:49):
I can do it at home. I travel with it.
It's spectacular, all right.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
So what does it cost?
Speaker 5 (04:55):
So the suit retails for three thousand dollars. There's an app,
and there's trainers on the apps, so you pick I
want to focus on strength. I want to focus on cardio.
Maybe I'm going to focus on my old legs or
my abs. I'm fifty years old. I've worked out in
gyms for forty years. This is the first I've done Ironman.
I've done marathons, I've done every kind of fitness activity
(05:16):
you can do. I'm very active. This is the first
time I've had abs at fifty three, right, It's never
happened before. It's all because of suit. I can turn
up the abs and hit hit those muscles.
Speaker 4 (05:29):
Three thousand dollars.
Speaker 5 (05:30):
You follow a trainer on the app and that person
leads you through a twenty minute workout.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
People might know you from your days in cannabis medical
cannabis specifically. You were one of the co founders of Tilray.
You led the company. It's publicly traded now you're no
longer involved in cannabis. What was the process that got
you to buying Catalyst and talk a little bit about
the challenges the companies had before you came on board
(05:54):
and what you're trying to do now to get it
away from those challenges.
Speaker 4 (05:58):
Absolutely so, I think cannabis.
Speaker 5 (06:00):
You know, I started in cannabis back in twenty eleven,
so fourteen years ago, and back then people thought it
was crazy, right, is.
Speaker 4 (06:08):
What is he doing?
Speaker 5 (06:09):
He went to Yale, he has an MBA, Why is
he going into cannabis?
Speaker 4 (06:13):
And he's throwing away his whole career.
Speaker 5 (06:15):
But I could see the future. I could see what
was going to happen. I knew that country after country
was going to legalize. In the US, States were going
to legalize, and so I saw the opportunity. I saw
what was going to happen. I see the same thing
in EMS. If you go to Europe, there's these studios
everywhere with people working out in suits. And I think
(06:35):
five years from now, everyone in the US will be
familiar with MS. They'll either have a suit or they'll
go to gym and work out in that suit, because
it's the future of fitness.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
Well, Christy, I mean, you do cover so much about
wellness and fitness. We talk about it with you all
the time. I mean, how do you slot this sin
What are you hearing kind of from maybe the industry
about maybe is this kind of.
Speaker 4 (06:55):
A next way? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (06:57):
I mean this is definitely We've done stories about EMS
too before. Plastic surgeons in New York City offer it.
There's some startups that offer sort of similar things where
you go to a studio. For me, this really fit
into my normal system of going to Berry's boot camp.
You know, I'm a big Berries person and doing my
normal weightlifts, and then I added this in, yeah, two
or three times a week twenty minutes, and that's where
I really supercharged everything else that I did. And especially
(07:19):
on a day when you know, like Brendan said, if
you're too busy or you're traveling or whatever, you can
just kind of toss it in. And although I have
not taken it on a plane before, so I.
Speaker 4 (07:28):
Brought it with me. So this is what it looks like.
Is it quite big? It's not really.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
So for those listening on radio, christs holding up of
the best portion. But there's also that that sort of
there's another portion.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
That goes all the way down.
Speaker 4 (07:41):
Yes, that's for you around your legs and legs.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
There are armbands that go with it, and you have
to get it wet for the stem pads to like
really work.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
But do you have to say with a heart rate
monitor too. It's kind of the same thing.
Speaker 4 (07:52):
Exactly, Okay, very similar.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
So what do you see as your market. Is it
a case of selling directly to consumers? Is it about
setting up is like the Peloton model to some extent,
where you could go and actually get on a peloton
and be at a physical location. I mean Peloton kind
of went back and forth. What's the model in terms
of growing this business?
Speaker 5 (08:11):
So right now there are thousands of consumers that own
the suit and they work out at their homes or
at the office or in their hotel rooms. Yeah, while
they're traveling and they work out with the app. There
are also maybe two to three hundred studios in the
US that use a suit. Many of them use the
Catalyst suit, And so you can go to an MS
(08:32):
studio if you're mostly in a big city and try it.
And so they use a Catalyst suit. And so it's
both supplying to studios and we're seeing more and more
of those open, and then also to consumers.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
What's the moat that you have here? Because if this
is big in Europe, you're doing it here in the US.
People might catch on, they might see.
Speaker 4 (08:51):
That it's working.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Copycats could come in. What separates you hyper protect them?
Speaker 4 (08:56):
I think I think there's two moats.
Speaker 5 (08:57):
I think the first moat is Oddly, any MS suit
is regulated like a toaster in Europe, and so so
manufacturers can just make them and sell them here, it's
regulated by the FDA, and so this suit is FDA cleared,
and so we went through the FDA process in order
to sell it to consumers.
Speaker 4 (09:17):
That's that's one mote.
Speaker 5 (09:19):
I think the second moat is the content. There's there's
hundreds of workouts online that you can engage in.
Speaker 4 (09:26):
The app.
Speaker 5 (09:27):
Actually is what sends the impulse impulses to.
Speaker 4 (09:31):
That's what's apps.
Speaker 5 (09:32):
You yes, and so the app does it.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
Family to get them to do other things just saying no,
forgive me go ahead.
Speaker 4 (09:42):
No.
Speaker 5 (09:43):
I think it's the content and the FDA clearance really
the two moats.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
What about competition or just the wellness world at large,
Like it feels like, you know, we go through these
fads and waves and trends.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Yeah, you don't want this to end up in the
same pile as the thigh master.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
I think, hey, everybody should have a thigh master. No,
I'm just kidding, but how do you make sure?
Speaker 5 (10:05):
I think strength is important no matter what you do, right,
And so I use my suit three day this week,
twenty minutes I run so I have cardio. You can
you work out on treadmill wearing the suit. People do that,
but I think strength will always be there. Strength will
always be important. It fixes your posture. Bone density for
a lot of people is really important. People on GLP
(10:27):
one drugs lose strength, and so this suit helps people
of different demographics in.
Speaker 4 (10:34):
Ages very quickly.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
You can work out while you're wearing the suit, and
also wear the suit independently while you're not working out,
or you're always working out while you wear There are people.
Speaker 5 (10:41):
That do freestyle workouts, which means the suit is charging
impulsing and they're folding laundry or doing the dishes or
walking on a treadmill.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
I think you and I need these. You're still doing
it real quickly.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
Yes, yeah, oh yeah, I'm in.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
I got to tell you.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
I go to a doctor and they say it's all
about strength and getting your muscles, building muscle strengths. So
it totally makes sense. Gentlemen, Thank you so much, really
appreciate it. Brendan Kennedy, chief executive Officer of Monte Maer,
the owner of Catalysts, joining us here in studio alone
with our own Chris Rouser. He's editor of Bloomberg Pursuit,
so you can check out and read more about Chris's experience.
It was a really fun read. It's in the new
(11:18):
issue of Bloomberg BusinessWeek in the Pursuit section.
Hosts And Creators
Tim Stenovec
Carol Massar
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