Peloton co-founder John Foley is a rug man now

What Ernesta’s spherical tells us about in the present day’s VC market

John Foley clearly didn’t take (ahem) a brake after leaving Peloton.

The previous co-founder and CEO of the related health firm — who stepped down as CEO in February and left the corporate altogether in September — is again with a brand new startup.

Ernesta, which goals to launch in spring 2023, will promote customized rugs via a direct-to-consumer technique. It has already raised a $25 million Collection A spherical from a slate of buyers that additionally backed Peloton, together with True Ventures and Lee Fixel, via his present agency Addition.

It’s not stunning to see Foley getting again into the startup recreation by any means — enterprise capital each embraces failure and loves a great comeback story. Plus, there are many earlier examples of this occurring involving of us who left firms on a lot worse phrases than Foley did. However this deal is especially fascinating — even if you look previous the seeming randomness of it.

For one factor, comeback tales in enterprise don’t usually begin in the identical calendar 12 months that the earlier story resulted in. And Foley’s means to rapidly increase such a large spherical earlier than the corporate’s launch truly tells us fairly a bit about the place the market is at proper now.