Strava, the California-based fitness app, has acquired popular British running appRunna for an undisclosed sum.
Founded in 2021, London-based Runna is a personalised running app that creates plans for its users based on their goals and current fitness. It’s gained traction in the UK and has partnered with a number of running events across the country.
Fitness giant Strava boasts more than 120m users worldwide and was valued at $1.5bn in a 2020 funding round led by Sequoia. But its lack of in-app training plans has been a pain point for the company and something the Runna acquisition should help fix.
“For a while, Strava had created static, document-based plans for runners but the reality is those were used very, very infrequently,” Strava CEO Michael Martin tells The Verge.
Runna employs around 150 people and has raised £8m in funding from investors including Eka Ventures, JamJar, Venrex and Creator Ventures. The company doesn’t disclose user numbers, but CEO Dom Maskell said in 2023 the company had around 3,000 paid subscribers, and the company has been profitable since then.
“Our plan with this acquisition is to invest further into growing the Runna app, invest in the Runna team, and then continue to operate them as independent but in an integrated fashion,” says Martin.
Alluding to the current uncertainty of the global economy, he adds: “I’d be lying to not say it’s a challenge to think about investing in growth during a period such as this, but it’s so clearly the right thing to do […] This is very much a growth and investment play. This isn’t an efficiency play.”
Read the orginal article: https://sifted.eu/articles/strava-buys-runna-deal-fitness-app/
