In an exclusive interview with Matt B. Davis of Hybrid Fitness Media, HYROX co-founder Christian Toetzke said he and Moritz Fuerste are regaining a controlling stake in the fitness racing company through a buyback of shares held by Infront.

The transaction is being led by Toetzke and Fuerste, with investment from L Catterton and WndrCo, the investment firm founded by Jeffrey Katzenberg and Sujay Jaswa.

The distinction matters. HYROX’s founders are not selling their shares or stepping away as outside capital enters the business. According to Toetzke, the deal moves ownership in the other direction: he and Fuerste are buying back the shares that had made Infront the controlling shareholder and will again hold control of HYROX.

“Mo and myself are not selling any shares. It’s the other way around,” Toetzke said. “We are buying shares back and from today on again we have the controlling stake in HYROX.”

Not an LVMH acquisition

Speculation around the deal had connected HYROX directly to LVMH. Toetzke said that characterization is not accurate, although L Catterton provides a real connection: LVMH and the Arnault family are shareholders in the consumer-focused investment firm.

“That’s the connection to Louis Vuitton when everyone was writing about Louis Vuitton buying HYROX,” Toetzke said. “That’s not correct, but that’s not totally wrong.”

Katzenberg, the former Disney executive and DreamWorks co-founder, and Jaswa, a Dropbox co-founder and former CFO, are behind WndrCo. Toetzke said the two investor groups will support the next stage of HYROX’s growth while he and Fuerste retain control over the company and the sport’s direction.

“They will help us. They will open us a lot of opportunities for the next chapter of HYROX and the next phase of growing the sport,” he said. “But we are controlling it and we are not cashing out.”

For a community that has watched the sport rapidly scale through larger venues, new markets and a growing professional field, the founders’ stated intention is continuity rather than an exit. Toetzke said he and Fuerste intend to remain involved for the long term: “We will go on for the next decades doing that.”

Founders also confirm involvement in XENOM

Toetzke also confirmed for the first time that he and Fuerste are investors, board members and creators behind XENOM, a new standardized fitness competition built around the CrossFit community. He said they had not been able to publicly discuss their involvement because of a non-disclosure agreement tied to the HYROX transaction.

The disclosure puts Toetzke and Furste at the center of two adjacent standardized fitness competition models: HYROX, built around a repeatable fitness-racing format, and XENOM, which aims to offer a comparable mass-participation event for CrossFit athletes. The companies serve different communities, but both are rooted in the same basic idea: turning a training discipline into a standardized competition that ordinary athletes can enter.

XENOM is not a HYROX-owned product, Toetzke said. He framed it as an effort to give everyday CrossFit athletes a repeatable, standardized competition format, similar in accessibility to HYROX.

“CrossFit is also missing a repeatable standardized event that everyone who’s doing CrossFit can do and can join in, like in HYROX,” Toetzke said. “We’re filling a void.”

Asked about slower-than-expected participation at XENOM’s early events, including London, Toetzke said the concept needs time and live events to become understandable to its potential audience. He compared that challenge to HYROX’s early days, when athletes needed to see the format in person before recognizing that it was intended for more than elite competitors.

“With every event, it will go up and it will go better,” he said.

Toetzke said XENOM expects to announce another three to five events soon, covering the first half of 2027 in Europe and North America.