CORPORATE-OWNED
SoulCycle
Includes Soul Cycle, SC
boutique fitness · New York, NY
- Acquirer
- Equinox Group
- Year Acquired
- 2011
They turned a cult fitness community into a shrinking chain of $40 bike rides nobody's taking.
The Bigger Fish
- Equinox bought 75% of SoulCycle in May 2011. In 2015 it paid each co-founder about $90 million to push its stake to 97%, and the two women who built the cult brand were gone by 2016
- Parent Equinox has carried private equity money since L Catterton's 2017 stake and Silver Lake's 2020 investment. In 2024 it raised $1.8 billion to pay off loans coming due, with Sixth Street and Silver Lake leading and Ares, HPS, L Catterton, and Related's principals also putting money in
- Studio count has collapsed from a peak near 100 to roughly 57 U.S. locations by 2026, including a full exit from Canada and repeated closure rounds in New York and California
- Related chairman Stephen Ross, an investor in parent Equinox, hosted a $250,000-per-ticket Trump fundraiser in 2019 that sparked a national boycott. Bookings fell about 10% nationally in the days after, and weekend attendance in New York and San Francisco dropped roughly 15%
Since the Acquisition
- The star instructors riders showed up for had their premium pay cut in 2022 after a PwC benchmarking study found some were paid well above market
- A single class runs about $36 to $40 while the studio network keeps shrinking, so you're paying premium prices for fewer locations and less star power
- New York's attorney general forced parent company Equinox to pay $600,000 over subscription terms it failed to disclose and memberships that were hard to cancel — SoulCycle riders were among those trapped
Sources
- AG James secures $600,000 from Equinox for hard-to-cancel memberships — NY Attorney General(2025-05-30)
- SoulCycle closing 25% of studios — CNN(2022-08-15)
- SoulCycle layoffs and 19 studio closures — Athletech News(2022-08-15)
- How an Ex-Talent Manager Co-Founded SoulCycle and Sold for $90M — The Hollywood Reporter(2018)
- Equinox Group Secures Strategic Investments to Refinance Existing Loans — PRNewswire(2024-03-08)
- Equinox Gets $1.8 Billion in Fresh Capital to Refinance Debt — Bloomberg Law(2024-03-08)
- SoulCycle's Political Backlash and Drop in Attendance — Earnest Analytics(2019-08)
- SoulCycle sees attendance drop after Trump fundraiser flap — The Hill(2019-08)
- SoulCycle Changed Instructor Salary and Closed Studios in August — Athletech News(2022-08)
- SoulCycle closing multiple studios across U.S. — TheStreet(2026)
- Fitness Studio Chain Shutters Locations Nationwide, Including In CA — Patch(2026)
- More Than $30 for a SoulCycle Class? Not When a Recession Hits — Bloomberg Opinion(2019-09-17)
- SoulCycle Inc. Form S-1/A: Equinox acquired 75% on May 25, 2011; founders' units redeemed for $89.9 million each in 2015 (SEC)(2015-12)
- Equinox Fitness Clubs Receives Investment from L Catterton (L Catterton release)(2017-07-11)
- Equinox Group — Silver Lake portfolio ('Partner Since 2020', 'Current Investment')(2026-09-23)