Pure Freedom YYoga Wellness Inc.

BCBusiness Innovators 2012, YYoga | BCBusiness
Back: 2012 BCBusiness Guide to Innovation

Congratulations to Pure Freedom YYOGA Wellness Inc., #17 in 2012’s Most Innovative Companies in B.C.

While tech startups and innovation go hand in hand, the ancient art of yoga would seem an unlikely candidate on any list of top innovators. Yet the YYoga chain of yoga centres provides a new take by bringing rigorous business principles to the 5,000-year-old practice.

“The platform they established is unique compared to the yoga studios out there or other business models that are attached to yoga studios,” explains Randy Garg, a managing partner at Beedie Capital Partners, which along with a group of other investors, injected $9 million into YYoga in January this year.

While dozens of one-off yoga studios offer widely varying levels of facility and instruction, YYoga co-founder Terry McBride developed a standardized model and has launched an aggressive expansion. The five-year-old company broke ground on its eighth Vancouver location this January, a Kitsilano locale set to open this summer, and is currently looking to secure more studio spaces in Toronto.

Innovators panellist David Ian Gray applauds YYoga’s business savvy: “They’ve brought in all of the business functionality and retained the yoga professional as the front service provider.”