Strava acquires massively popular Runna app

Go to any run membership on the earth and there’s a superb probability that everybody there has two issues: a Garmin smartwatch to trace their run and a Strava account to brag about it. Given the worldwide working growth, it makes Strava’s lack of any fashionable, in-app coaching plans a curious and obtrusive omission. Or, at the very least, it was till in the present day as Strava is buying Runna.

For many who don’t torture themselves with a 6AM each day run, that is huge information — even when the businesses are maintaining mum on the deal’s monetary particulars. Strava is probably the most well-known health social media app in the marketplace. In the meantime, Runna burst onto the scene in 2021 and has rapidly climbed the app charts for folk in want of 5K, 10K, or marathon coaching plans. Since launch, it’s secured an extra $6.3 million in funding for its AI-powered run teaching, with customers spanning 180 nations. In 2024, Runna additionally tripled the dimensions of its workforce and is at present hiring roughly 50 roles to increase the product and tech. Peruse working subreddits or RunTok, and also you’ll invariably see somebody asking about or recommending the app.

The deal looks as if a win-win for Strava and Runna. Strava will get to shore up one in all its greatest weaknesses — the shortage of working coaching plans. For Runna, it will get entry to one of many largest on-line working communities and Strava’s coffers.

“For some time, Strava had created static, document-based plans for runners however the actuality is these had been used very, very occasionally,” Strava CEO Michael Martin says. In accordance with the corporate’s analysis, the shortage of steering was a ache level for longtime customers and newcomers to the app. “We got here to understand that, because it associated to runners, that steering was coaching plans.”

There’ll be a brief wait earlier than Strava and Runna customers see adjustments from the acquisition.

“Successfully, nothing adjustments for the consumer out of the gate. Our plan with this acquisition is to take a position additional into rising the Runna app, put money into the Runna workforce, after which proceed to function them as impartial however in an built-in vogue,” Martin says, including that after the deal is absolutely wrapped, customers can anticipate to start out seeing adjustments within the coming weeks and months.

“The ambition is to do issues the place it is smart,” provides Runna cofounder and CEO Dom Maskell, who notes a extra seamless integration between the 2 apps would assist create a smoother consumer expertise. “It’s like, the consumer comes on and so they need to see what run they’re doing in the present day. That sits in Runna, after which they need to go discover a route for that run — that sits in Strava. Then, if they need reside teaching, that’s on Runna after which Strava frankly has higher tech than us for recording in your telephone. In the intervening time, the consumer form of will get handed off numerous occasions.”

One factor that hasn’t been determined but is how subscriptions will work. Strava has a free tier however expenses $79.99 a 12 months for premium options, whereas Runna prices $119.99 yearly. Whereas Runna at present makes use of Strava’s third-party API, till the main points are hammered out, customers will nonetheless must subscribe to each companies to get the total vary of options. When pressed additional on the difficulty, Martin says he envisions the Runna acquisition to be extra akin to when the corporate purchased Get well Athletics, a prehab and damage prevention app, than when it acquired FATMAP, a 3D-mapping platform. With a Strava subscription, Get well Athletics is actually a free perk however features as a separate app. FATMAP’s app, nevertheless, was retired in late 2024 and its tech/options had been included into Strava.

Subscriptions will likely be a thorny situation for each Strava and Runna customers. Over the previous few years, the r/Strava subreddit has been rife with accusations of enshittification, with many directing their ire towards the app paywalling options. Typically, customers are likely to react badly to any adjustments in subscriptions or smaller manufacturers getting wolfed up by greater ones. Working example, in 2023, Strava hiked up subscription costs in a messy rollout that left customers offended and confused. You solely want to have a look at the response to Garmin’s latest subscription launch to know the Strava-Runna information could not go over properly with some customers — a truth Martin and Maskell are properly conscious of.

“We’ve received fairly an lively Reddit neighborhood, and I do know there’s most likely fairly a big overlap between them and the sturdy voices within the remark part,” says Maskell. “We attempt to be very clear and open with them, and I genuinely imagine that is a tremendous factor for all customers. I’m glad to inform everybody about it and sit on Reddit for the entire day to reply everybody’s questions.”

“I’d be mendacity to not say it’s a problem to consider investing in progress throughout a interval reminiscent of this, but it surely’s so clearly the fitting factor to do,” Martin says, referring to the present unsure financial local weather. “That is very a lot a progress and funding play. This isn’t an effectivity play.”