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2024 was an exceptional year for GymBeam for two reasons. The company celebrated ten years since its founding and closed its first decade as the fourth-largest European “digital-first” fitness brand. The company’s growth was driven by three areas it developed simultaneously: logistics automation, technological innovation, and brand building in new European markets.
Quick summary: key facts about GymBeam (2024)
- Milestone: 2024 marked the tenth anniversary of the founding of the GymBeam brand.
- Revenue: consolidated holding revenue reached EUR 224 million; revenue from core operations amounted to EUR 169 million excluding VAT (EUR 202 million including VAT), representing year-on-year growth of 27%.
- EBITDA: consolidated EBITDA for 2024 reached EUR 11.7 million.
- Markets: the company operated in 16 European countries; it was number one in 5 markets and ranked among the three best-known fitness brands in 10.
- Customers: 2.2 million active customers and more than 4.8 million customers in total.
- Orders: the number of orders increased by 23% year on year.
- Product range: more than 11,000 products, positioning GymBeam as a comprehensive “one-stop shop”.
- Team: 703 employees from 16 nationalities, operating across 17 countries.
- Headquarters: Košice (Slovakia).
What position did GymBeam hold in the sports nutrition market in 2024?
During its first decade, GymBeam grew from zero into Europe’s fourth-largest “digital-first” fitness brand. In the Central and Eastern European region, it was the fastest-growing fitness and lifestyle brand and the leading digitally native D2C (Direct-to-Consumer) player in sports nutrition, healthy foods, sportswear and training accessories.
The company operated in 16 European countries. It was number one in five markets and among the three best-known fitness brands in ten. In its first ten years, it gained 6 million satisfied customers, who purchased over 100 million products from it.
The cumulative results for the entire decade also demonstrate the scale of its impact. GymBeam sold more than 15 tonnes of protein, nearly 1.7 million peanut butters and over 1.1 million GymBeam T-shirts. In paid campaigns, it collaborated with more than 784 influencers, who helped spread the brand and its products to millions of customers.
Which countries did GymBeam operate in?
GymBeam successfully expanded into 16 European countries, had 2.2 million active customers and more than 4.8 million customers in total. The strategic markets the company focused on in 2024 were the DACH region, Italy and Poland.
The DACH region recorded the most significant growth, with expansion exceeding expectations. A key step was listing products on Amazon Germany and launching collaborations with local influencers. The quality of the brand’s presence in the region was confirmed by more than 1,700 positive reviews on Trustpilot, with an average rating of 4.6.
Year-on-year revenue growth in selected markets (2024)
| Market | Year-on-year growth |
|---|---|
| DACH (Germany, Austria, Switzerland) | +318 % |
| Italy | +124 % |
| Poland | +54 % |
| Greece | +40% |
On international platforms, GymBeam debuted on the Greek skroutz.gr, reached EUR 1 million in GMV on Amazon in its first year, and exceeded 1,000 orders per day on Polish Allegro. In Italy, it launched a local YouTube channel in collaboration with influencers, while in Slovenia it built brand awareness through the TV show The Biggest Loser.
Who led GymBeam?
The company was led by its founder and CEO, Dalibor Cicman. He had been active in e-commerce since 2006, when he launched his first online store, and before GymBeam, he gradually built 15 online stores. Since 2014, he has been fully dedicated to GymBeam, which he founded and has led as CEO since its inception.
In 2024, he received the prestigious EY Entrepreneur of the Year 2023 award in Slovakia. He holds a degree in Financial Management from the University of Economics in Bratislava and completed the Executive Program in Leadership Strategies at Stanford University.
Executive Management (2024)
| Position | Name |
|---|---|
| CEO | Dalibor Cicman |
| COO | Róbert Čižmár |
| CMO | Beatrix Vojteková |
| CTO | Jakub Brezovský |
| CFO | Štefan Maťovka |
What was GymBeam’s employee structure in 2024?
GymBeam had 703 colleagues from 16 nationalities and operated across 17 countries worldwide. It was a young and dynamic team with an average age of 31, while female representation reached 48.5%.
Team structure (2024)
- Number of team members: 703
- Average age: 31 years
- Female representation: 48.5%
- Nationalities: 16
- Countries of operation: 17 countries
The company placed emphasis on education and talent development. In its internal workshops, it expanded the topics to include the use of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI), stress management and data analysis in Tableau. Together, they completed 2,746 hours of internal training. It also organised several community and professional events, including an AI data hackathon for 130 participants, the Logistics Night event and the Marketing Thursday series.
What were the key financial results for 2024?
According to GymBeam’s 2024 annual report, GymBeam achieved total revenue of EUR 224 million within the holding company. Of this, revenue from its core business, the sale of dietary supplements, accounted for EUR 202 million including VAT. The remaining revenue came primarily from the sale of raw materials for the production of dietary supplements.
Revenue from core operations reached EUR 169 million excluding VAT, representing year-on-year growth of 27% compared to the previous year. Consolidated EBITDA for 2024 reached EUR 11.7 million.
The customer base consisted of 2.2 million active customers, while the number of orders increased by 23% year on year. The company also expanded its product portfolio by 17% year on year, of which 58% of new products came from its own brands.
How did GymBeam automate customer service and develop B2B?
One of the key areas of development was the automation of customer service using large language models. GymBeam deployed a chatbot on the gymbeam.cz, gymbeam.sk and gymbeam.com domains, which handled over 13,000 messages during the year. The company also implemented a large language model for automatically responding to customers’ text messages, which can independently resolve a certain proportion of conversations.
Thanks to automation, the company saved the equivalent of 2.5 full-time employees (FTEs) – despite the growing number of orders and customers, it did not have to expand its customer service team. The goal for 2025 was to expand the chatbot’s capabilities and deploy it to independently handle up to 20% of all customer conversations.
In B2B sales, the company divided its team in the Czech Republic and Slovakia into two separate units – B2B Sales (management and development of relationships with existing partners) and B2B Acquisition (acquisition of new retail partners such as fitness centres, sports stores and supermarkets). In the retail B2B segment, it recorded year-on-year revenue growth of 74.81% and, in sales through e-commerce partners, growth of 18.11%. As much as 86.61% of B2B revenue came from the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
How did GymBeam perform in marketing and community building?
The year 2024 was a period of dynamic growth, strong partnerships and active community building for GymBeam. By the end of the year, the brand had over 3.5 million followers. The campaign with the slogan “Good Energy for Every Sport” (Good Energy for Every Sport) was nominated for the best marketing campaign in Poland.
The company entered into strategic partnerships with Europe’s largest MMA organisations. In Germany, it partnered with Oktagon MMA. Nearly 60,000 people attended the GymBeam Halftime Shows featuring John Newman during the Oktagon 62 tournament in Frankfurt. It also expanded its combat sports activities into Poland (KSW and FAME MMA).
In 2024, GymBeam launched a total of 3,120 new products and focused on unconventional categories such as combat sports, cold exposure, running and rehabilitation. Among customers, products such as the ice bath tub, protein croissant, creatine and ashwagandha in gummy form became particularly popular. In the clothing segment, the company added new categories of jackets and training jumpsuits.
An important milestone was the rebranding of one of the most successful lines in the portfolio – BeastPink. The line received a new, more sophisticated logo and packaging design, complemented by the claim “Be your own kind of beautiful”. The rebranding emphasised authenticity, diversity among the models, and an expanded size range from XS to XXL, while the supplements retained their original, customer-tested formulation.
As part of its community-building efforts, GymBeam organised 115 events at its Prague Fitness Hub, ranging from yoga and community runs to educational workshops. A key step was the opening of a new Fitness Hub in Budapest. The entire year was also marked by celebrations of the brand’s tenth anniversary, which the company supported with a series of special campaigns and events.
How extensive was the GymBeam product range?
GymBeam offered more than 11,000 products, positioning itself as a comprehensive “one-stop shop”. At the end of 2024, it recorded 11,925 SKUs in its main warehouse, compared to 7,584 SKUs at the end of 2023.
The company expanded its product portfolio year on year by 17%, with 58% of new products coming from its own brands. Overall, in 2024 it launched 3,120 new products. Development focused on innovative solutions in the areas of protein supplements, functional foods and healthy nutrition.
What logistics and technological infrastructure did GymBeam have?
A significant milestone was the launch of the fully automated AutoStore warehouse system. The company divided the implementation into several iterations. It launched the first system in summer across an area of 625 m², with 32 robots and 9 ports, while the first iteration cost EUR 2.9 million. Later in 2024, it expanded it to 102 robots and 16 ports, enabling it to dispatch over 10,000 orders per day.
The year 2024 was a period of significant transformation for IT. The company built a new IT management structure consisting of four separate verticals, each led by its own director. They covered key areas: Magento systems, Serverless solutions, ERP and Data. In response to the company’s growth, it expanded the IT team by 120% and increased the number of teams from four to eleven.
Other key projects included the development of an order management system for combining different types of products and the launch of development of a product information management (PIM) system on a serverless architecture. At the same time, the company began rewriting the frontend in React and was preparing to launch a mobile app that, following internal testing, was expected to be available to customers at the beginning of the following year.
What were the financial results of GymBeam s.r.o. for 2024?
According to the financial statements presented in GymBeam’s 2024 annual report, the company achieved a profit for 2024 of EUR 5,085,571. The following statements relate to the parent company GymBeam s.r.o., not to the consolidated holding.
The parent company reported total revenue of EUR 189.3 million excluding VAT (compared with EUR 148.5 million in 2023) and a pre-tax profit of EUR 6.7 million. The average full-time equivalent number of employees increased from 308 to 476.
Financial overview (GymBeam s.r.o., in thousands of EUR, excluding VAT)
| Indicator | 2023 | 2024 |
|---|---|---|
| Average full-time equivalent number of employees | 308 | 476 |
| Total revenue* | 148 531 | 189 282 |
| Total costs | 134 404 | 182 618 |
| Profit before tax | 14 127 | 6 664 |
*Revenue and income are stated excluding VAT.
Cost and Revenue Analysis (GymBeam s.r.o., in thousands of EUR)
| Indicator | 2023 | 2024 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Operating revenue | 148 098 | 188 230 | +27 % |
| Operating expenses | 132 676 | 179 907 | +36% |
| Operating profit/loss | 15 422 | 8 323 | −46 % |
| Income from financial activities | 433 | 1 051 | +143 % |
| Financial expenses | 1 728 | 2 710 | +57 % |
| Financial result from financial activities | −1 295 | −1 659 | +28 % |
| Income tax | 3 045 | 1 578 | −48 % |
| Profit/loss for the accounting period | 11 082 | 5 086 | −54 % |
The decline in operating profit was related to a strategic decision to maintain higher revenue growth and achieve future savings in logistics. The company expanded its presence in key markets such as DACH, Italy and Poland, which was reflected in the cost structure. The implementation of the AutoStore system and further automation led to a temporary increase in logistics costs, but over the medium term, the technology was expected to significantly improve overall profitability.
Selected revenue (GymBeam s.r.o., in EUR thousands)
| Type of revenue | 2023 | 2024 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue from the sale of goods | 130 755 | 159 962 | +22 % |
| Revenue from the sale of own products and services | 4 265 | 5 803 | +36 % |
| Capitalised own work | 2 003 | 3 559 | +78 % |
| Revenue from the sale of non-current assets | 10 804 | 18 455 | +71% |
| Other operating income | 271 | 451 | +66% |
Selected expenses (GymBeam s.r.o., in thousands of EUR)
| Type of expense | 2023 | 2024 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cost of goods purchased | 74 787 | 93 004 | +24 % |
| Service costs | 29 274 | 42 014 | +44 % |
| Production costs | 6 193 | 8 674 | +40 % |
| Personnel costs | 11 208 | 16 720 | +49 % |
| Depreciation and amortisation | 1 850 | 3 155 | +71 % |
In the area of financing, the company secured its largest bank loan to date, which it planned to draw down in 2025, while also making extensive preparations for a potential equity investment. A significant step was the transition to a new auditor—PwC, a member of the “Big Four”—which raised the standard of reporting and financial transparency.
The holding’s consolidated revenue reached EUR 224 million. Revenue from its core business, namely the sale of dietary supplements, amounted to EUR 169 million excluding VAT (EUR 202 million including VAT), representing year-on-year growth of 27%.
In 2024, GymBeam had 2.2 million active customers and more than 4.8 million customers in total. Over its first ten years, 6 million customers purchased from the brand.
GymBeam operated in 16 European countries. It was the number one brand in five markets and ranked among the three best-known fitness brands in ten.
The founder and CEO is Dalibor Cicman, who has led the company since its establishment in 2014. In 2024, he received the EY Entrepreneur of the Year 2023 award in Slovakia.
GymBeam had 703 employees from 16 nationalities working across 17 countries. The team’s average age was 31, and women accounted for 48.5% of the workforce.
Conclusion
The GymBeam brand was established in 2014 by renaming BaP Partners, s.r.o. (founded in 2011) to GymBeam s.r.o., headquartered in Košice. The year 2024 marked its tenth anniversary, which the company concluded as the fourth-largest European “digital-first” fitness brand, with 2.2 million active customers and operations in 16 countries.
The holding company’s consolidated revenue reached EUR 224 million, while revenue from its core business grew by 27% year-on-year. The main growth drivers included logistics automation (the launch and expansion of the AutoStore system), technological innovation (a new IT structure, frontend rewrite, and mobile app development), and expansion into new markets, particularly in the DACH region, Italy and Poland.
With the largest bank loan in its history, preparations for a capital investment and plans to open additional Fitness Hubs, GymBeam entered 2025 with the ambition to further strengthen its position as a leader in sports nutrition and healthy living in Central and Eastern Europe.
[1] Annual report GymBeam 2024 – https://drive.google.com/file/u/3/d/1GIsRa1GtlZe4Laxw6_3HbrCZiQzTjjab/view?usp=sharing&usp=embed_facebook