If you frequently read this newsletter, you know we talk a lot about “person and theme” — and how we closely evaluate those criteria when deciding to invest in a founder or creator. We must have strong conviction in the person as a resilient, driven entrepreneur and the category in which they’re operating as important and growing. There should be compelling tailwinds or changing dynamics that create whitespace for new value creation and capture. When you add a creator’s engaged community to this mix, the opportunity becomes even more compelling.
It’s for these reasons that we’re excited to back Tayla Cannon, a physical therapist and creator reimagining modern PT care starting with Rebuildr — a platform for both practitioners and patients.
Tayla can be described in two words: high-output and determined. Between seeing patients, creating content, growing her community, training herself, and (at the time) working in therapy development for heart failure and interventional cardiology, she operates at a pace that defies the constraints of a 24-hour day. On top of all this, she is dedicated to fixing the outdated rehabilitation system she encountered after immigrating to the US from Australia.
Tayla spent two years trapped in persistent back pain — seeing everyone, trying everything, yet feeling like no one looked at the whole picture. Every treatment plan felt short-term, focused on relief rather than rebuilding. When she finally found her way out by combining rehab and performance into one integrated approach, she realized that it wasn’t her but the system. Her experience catalyzed everything.
Tayla’s belief is that PTs and consumers are ready for a modern approach to rehabilitation and one that is part of their daily health care stack, not just something you do when you’re injured. We’ve seen this evolution before in mental health: what was once relegated to acute crises now plays an essential role in holistic wellness.
She deeply understands both sides of her community and her vision addresses their pain points. The PTs are burned out, trading time for money with no path to sustainable impact, looking to scale their practices virtually while delivering high-quality, consistent care. The patients are active who don’t want pain dictating their training or life and are seeking proactive, progressive care — not just five exercises to do at home.
Our investment will support Tayla as she grows her community and leadership in the space while accelerating the infrastructure she’s building to deliver on her vision of modern physical therapy.
You can read more about Tayla and her journey in Tech Crunch!
Finally, below is an abridged investment memo outlining why we decided to back Tayla and Rebuildr. We couldn’t be more excited to be along for the ride.
Creator
Tayla is a licensed physiotherapist and creator focused on replacing reactive, episodic PT with a proactive, whole-system model that delivers better outcomes for clients and sustainable careers for clinicians. After immigrating from Australia to the US and experiencing firsthand the failures of the traditional healthcare system (both as a patient struggling with chronic pain and as a clinician witnessing burnout), she launched her own virtual clinic. She deeply understands the connection between performance and recovery and the untapped role PT can play in daily training. Beyond her clinic and content creation, Tayla has worked as a heart failure researcher. Her determination and entrepreneurial drive fuel her long-term vision of expanding care access for patients while helping PTs build scalable, fulfilling businesses.
Community
Tayla’s community has grown quickly over the past eighteen months. Her Instagram following grew from 10k in February 2024 to ~140k today. She’s built an engaged community of both patients and physical therapists — evidenced by the 1,000+ PTs who inquired about — and the 350 who applied to beta test — her software platform after only two Instagram stories. Her patients are typically young, active gym-goers who prioritize physical and mental health and refuse to let pain dictate their training. The PTs are practitioners seeking to escape clinic burnout by scaling their businesses virtually, looking to Tayla for guidance on everything from software and pricing to lead generation and client management.
Category
Tayla operates at the intersection of modern, performance-oriented musculoskeletal care delivered virtually and through hybrid models. The broader PT category is undergoing a fundamental shift — evolving from acute, episodic, reactive care (the “here are five exercises, good luck” model) to whole-body, consistent, proactive care integrated into people’s ongoing health routines. Mental health underwent a similar transformation, spawning entirely new infrastructure to support continuous care rather than crisis intervention. The US in-person PT services industry is worth $48bn, while the US telerehab market is valued at ~$2bn and growing at a 13% CAGR.
Businesses
Tayla is building the complete infrastructure for modern physical therapy through three integrated pillars: Certification, a training program teaching PTs her rehab+performance method plus business fundamentals like pricing and marketing; Platform, purpose-built software with HIPAA-grade security that consolidates assessments, programming, documentation, communication, and payments into one workflow; and Marketplace, a directory connecting patients seeking progressive care with certified coaches. Together, these pillars create a complete career system for PTs and a new standard of care for patients, with potential future expansion into in-person clinics.