HYROX founders Christian Toetzke and Moritz Fürste have invested in functional fitness series XENOM and joined its board of directors, in a strategic partnership aimed at developing fitness racing into an international sport.
The agreement encompasses marketing, event activation, and education as XENOM prepares for its first full international season in 2027, following initial 2026 events hosted in Dallas, TX, London, UK, Miami, FL, and Malaga, Spain.
Toetzke and Fürste have worked with Keith Barlow, Chief Executive Officer at XENOM, since 2020. They join an executive board that includes WNDR, the investment firm led by Jeffrey Katzenberg and Sujay Jaswa, which previously led XENOM’s US$15 million seed funding round.
Christian Toetzke, Founder at HYROX, said “We have always believed that fitness had the potential to become one of the largest sports in the world, and the growth of HYROX over the past decade has shown that millions of people will train all year for a standardised competition and travel across the world to take part in it.
“XENOM completes that picture with a standardised test of total fitness, including the strength and gymnastics disciplines that a huge global community prioritises in their training but has never had a global competition built around. We have worked with Keith since 2020, and joining him on this journey was a very logical decision for us, because we share the same goal of making fitness the largest sport on earth.”
Moritz Fürste, Co-Founder at HYROX, said “I’ve been involved in two sports at a global level, field hockey as an athlete, HYROX as a co-founder, and now XENOM as the third. Across all of them, the same principles apply.
“If you create a format designed specifically for a large community of people, one that speaks to their passions, and you execute it at the highest level, you can build something special. Over the past decade we’ve driven the growth of one of the first truly new sports. XENOM follows the same logic, for a community that has never had its own global competition and we see the same scale in it.”
Keith Barlow, Chief Executive Officer at XENOM, added “You can’t overstate how beneficial it is to have this group of people around you when you’re building something of this ambition. Christian and Mo have taken fitness events into more markets than anyone in this sport, and their experience, alongside the backing of investors like WNDR, means we can invest in and establish the infrastructure for a global events system from day one, rather than learning each market the hard way.
“We see an incredible opportunity to meet the huge unmet demand from people training in boxes, garages and gyms around the world, who have been waiting for a complete, standardised test of their fitness – and to build XENOM into the defining global platform for the pursuit of total performance.”
XENOM, billed as ‘the Decathlon of Fitness’, operates as a stadium-scale competition series structured around 10 fixed, standardised disciplines that test maximal strength, gymnastics, and aerobic capacity. The format utilises an objective, point-based scoring system known as the Elite Performance Index. This provides a repeatable international benchmark for functional fitness athletes, weightlifters, and gym-goers. The competition features Elite, RX, and Compete divisions to accommodate participants across various experience levels.
HYROX is a mass-participation hybrid racing series that combines eight 1km runs with eight functional workout stations. Founded in Germany in 2017, the company hosts events across more than 30 countries and six continents, supported by its HYROX 365 training clubs, HYROX YoungStars, the Elite Series, and HYROX Experiences.
Christian Toetzke is a former professional athlete and sports entrepreneur who previously co-founded event management company UCOM, where he organised major marathons and triathlons across Europe before launching HYROX. Moritz Fürste is a former international field hockey player for Germany, winning Olympic gold medals in 2008 and 2012, an Olympic bronze medal in 2016, and multiple World and European titles before co-founding HYROX.
www.xenom.global
www.hyrox.com
