Momence

Overview

Momence began in 2020 as Ribbon, a checkout and operations layer for instructors forced onto Zoom. It became a broad system for boutique fitness and wellness businesses: scheduling, memberships, payments, messaging, marketing, staff, retail, video, and reporting. By January 2025, the company said more than 4,500 businesses used the product and hundreds of thousands of consumers booked through it each month.^[1]

Clubessential Holdings acquired Momence on January 29, 2025. The parties did not disclose the price. Momence remained active inside Clubessential's fitness portfolio, then became part of Xplor Technologies when Xplor and Clubessential completed their merger in March 2026.^[2]

Momence combined a narrow customer relationship, embedded payments, and an unusually broad operating product. That made a lightly funded startup useful to an acquirer assembling vertical software and payment volume. The acquisition was a successful exit, and the product continues under Xplor.

Image 1 / 2

Founding Story

Vojta Drmota and Matteo Carroll met while playing soccer at Harvard. Carroll, from Brazil, graduated in 2019; Drmota, who grew up in Sweden and has Czech roots, studied philosophy and computer science and graduated in 2020.^[3] They had already experimented with payments. A third Harvard student joined them on Lux Pay, a finger-vein payment system tested at a Harvard Square convenience store. Roughly 210 students registered, but Apple Pay and Google Pay offered a simpler path for most merchants and consumers.^[4]

The COVID-19 lockdown supplied a more urgent problem. Carroll returned to Brazil and Drmota to the Czech Republic. In April 2020, they watched yoga teachers, fitness instructors, and other independent hosts move classes onto Instagram and Zoom without a way to sell access, collect recurring payments, track customers, or send reminders. They built and launched Ribbon Experiences in less than two months.

Carroll told Exame, in Portuguese, “Mas não tinha nada para organizar isso, e muitas vezes era difícil fazer a venda propriamente, cobrar e acompanhar pagamentos.” The gap was commercial rather than video delivery: Zoom carried the class, while Ribbon handled the sale and the customer record.^[5]

The first product sold tickets and subscriptions, issued Zoom links, embedded checkout on the host's site, sent emails, and tracked customers and payments. A September 2020 company post described fixed-price and donation-based classes, customized reminders, and a basic CRM.^[6]

The founders initially imagined geography becoming less relevant. Carroll said, “Quem gosta de yoga pode procurar mestres da Índia sem ter de viajar até lá.” Yet customers soon mixed online and physical classes. That behavior pointed toward a more durable product: the operating system for the host, regardless of where the experience happened.

Timeline

• February 2020: Drmota and Carroll are testing Lux Pay at Harvard before shifting to the business that became Momence.^[4]
• April–June 2020: The founders build and launch Ribbon Experiences as lockdown moves instructors online.^[5]
• Summer 2020: Ribbon joins YC's Summer 2020 batch.^[3]
• October 2020: Exame reports 950 creators across ten countries, more than 45,000 customer users, and a $1.2 million seed round.^[5]
• December 2021: Ribbon changes its name to Momence; existing checkout links and plugins continue to work.^[7]
• Early 2023 onward: Momence begins a multi-year migration from DigitalOcean to AWS as bookings, payments, and engineering needs outgrow its original infrastructure.^[8]
• January 2025: Clubessential Holdings acquires Momence for an undisclosed amount.^[1]
• March 2026: Clubessential and Xplor complete their merger. Momence remains in the combined product portfolio.^[2]