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Bouldering Project

Climbing gym chain · 15+ locations · Seattle, Austin, Boston, Brooklyn, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Phoenix-Tempe, Salt Lake City, Washington DC, Dallas

A family office's climbing-gym roll-up: FS Investors bought Brooklyn Boulders' distressed assets in 2022 and a Dallas gym in 2024, then installed an outside first-time CEO in 2025. Its newest Austin lease came from a smaller local gym that lost its own.

Investor-backedDisplacement Risk

The Big Picture

Significant Concerns

Bouldering Project has grown to 15 gyms largely by acquiring distressed or displaced competitors — Brooklyn Boulders' Gowanus and Somerville locations in 2022, Oso Climbing Gyms in Dallas in 2024, and a lease taken from a smaller Austin gym the same year. Neither original founder has a confirmed current role, and a first-time outside CEO took over in 2025. The company answers to FS Investors, the family office running this consolidation.

Let's Get Critical

Local ownership
2/10
Founder involvement
2/10
Worker pay & benefits
4/10
Environmental impact
5/10
Sourcing & labor
6/10

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Company data last updated July 2026

How does one person build and research all this? They don't: here's how it actually works. Verdicts are our opinions, based on the public sources cited above as of July 2026. Spotted something off? or learn more.