Ginastee Raises US$126K Pre-Seed Round to Scale Its Social Wellness Platform

Ginastee, a platform that helps fitness and wellness influencers and professionals turn their audiences into revenue through private communities and digital products, has completed a R$650,000 pre-seed round, approximately US$126,000, with Koinz Capital. The startup now aims to reach R$20 million, or around US$3.87 million, in wellness operations by the end of 2027.

The startup emerged during the pandemic, when founder Rafael Paiva began developing its first screens alone from his bedroom with limited resources. Since then, Ginastee has gone through several pivots and is now entering a new growth stage supported by financial and intellectual capital.

A platform built around fitness, wellness and community

Ginastee allows influencers and fitness and wellness professionals to create their own spaces within the platform, publish content and sell subscriptions to their followers. Users can also interact with one another, creating communities around shared interests and healthy habits.

The concept is designed to operate as a social network focused on fitness and wellness. Rather than simply consuming content from an influencer, users can join private communities, participate in challenges, interact with other members and like or comment on posts.

On the creator side, the platform provides autonomy to build and organize a dedicated space, structure content and monetize an audience through subscriptions and other digital products.

Rafael describes the company's approach as a combination of interaction, community and transformation through healthy habits.

“Ginastee's proposal is to deliver interaction, community and transformation through healthy habits. Unlike traditional platforms that focus heavily on individual guidance, we are a social network that connects major fitness and wellness personalities with their audiences,” Rafael said in an interview with Startups.

The startup's social wellness concept

The founder refers to the model as “social wellness,” a concept centered on building and maintaining healthy interpersonal relationships and mutual support.

The approach is based on the idea that overall health depends not only on individual self-care habits but also on the quality of relationships and the sense of belonging to a group.

For example, someone looking to adopt a healthier lifestyle may join a group or a running community led by a coach, combining the development of personal habits with interaction and support from others.

Ginastee is building its platform around this type of community-based experience, connecting creators with audiences interested in developing healthy lifestyles together.

A no-fee model for creators

Unlike traditional platforms for infoproducts or online courses, Ginastee does not charge content creators a monthly fee to use its software.

Its monetization model is entirely based on the success of its partners. The startup retains a take rate of approximately 10% of the value transacted through the platform, including subscriptions, group challenge sales and supporting materials.

During the platform's beta period, which ran from April 2025 to March 2026, Ginastee operated organically without investment in paid user acquisition.

Over that period, the startup reached more than 4,800 users, connecting around 50 content creators and health professionals with more than 4,700 students and followers.

AI features to support healthy habits

Ginastee is also integrating artificial intelligence features designed to help users build daily habits.

These capabilities include analyzing photos of meals and providing personalized recommendations, adding AI-powered tools to the platform's broader fitness and wellness experience.

Koinz Capital combines financial and intellectual capital

The US$126,000 pre-seed round was structured with the support of Koinz Capital, an investment firm founded by Leonardo Cruz that has followed Ginastee since the project was still at the MVP stage.

A key element of the investment was the combination of financial capital and intellectual capital through the creation of a strategic advisory board.

In practice, the intellectual capital model operates as a network of expertise. Between five and six professionals with complementary skills were selected to support the company in areas including tax law, finance, corporate governance, compliance and process structuring.

The advisors hold monthly meetings with Rafael to help guide the company's direction. The composition of the group is also adjusted periodically as the startup's challenges and priorities evolve.

The advisory board is chaired by Jaime Quintana, an executive with three decades of consulting experience at Falconi.

The group also includes Caio Scarduelli Salvatore Tebet, who brings compliance experience from his previous roles at Meta as a Compliance Specialist and at global fintech Revolut as a Compliance Manager.

Other advisors include Indira Duarte, a partner at IN – Consultoria Ativa, and lawyer Luís Márcio Bellotti Alvim, a partner at the law firm LNCAM.

The alignment with Ginastee's social wellness thesis was strong enough that some advisors, who initially participated only in the company's strategic direction, decided to invest their own financial capital to strengthen the round.

According to Rafael, the exact breakdown between the financial amount invested and the valuation assigned to intellectual capital has not been disclosed. However, the founder stated that the capital raised will support the startup's new traction phase and the hiring of a large marketing agency to accelerate the acquisition of creators.

Ginastee sets its sights on international expansion

While Ginastee's current strategy for attracting creators remains focused on Brazil, Rafael's longer-term ambition is to turn the company into a global technology reference for the wellness market.

The startup plans to officially begin its international expansion in 2028, with the North American market as its main priority.

Ginastee also plans for its next fundraising round to be conducted in a foreign currency as it prepares for this next stage of international growth.