Go to any run membership on the planet 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 global running boom, it makes Strava’s lack of any fashionable, in-app coaching plans a curious and obvious omission. Or, no less than, it was till in the present day as Strava is buying Runna.
For many who don’t torture themselves with a 6AM day by day run, that is huge information — even when the businesses are preserving mum on the deal’s monetary particulars. Strava is essentially the most well-known health social media app available on the market. In the meantime, Runna burst onto the scene in 2021 and has rapidly climbed the app charts for people in want of 5K, 10K, or marathon coaching plans. Since launch, it’s secured an additional $6.3 million in funding for its AI-powered run teaching, with customers spanning 180 international locations. In 2024, Runna additionally tripled the dimensions of its crew and is at the moment hiring roughly 50 roles to broaden 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 like 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 have been used very, very sometimes,” Strava CEO Michael Martin says. Based on the corporate’s analysis, the shortage of steering was a ache level for longtime customers and newcomers to the app. “We got here to appreciate that, because it associated to runners, that steering was coaching plans.”
There’ll be a brief wait earlier than Strava and Runna customers see modifications from the acquisition.
“Successfully, nothing modifications for the consumer out of the gate. Our plan with this acquisition is to speculate additional into rising the Runna app, put money into the Runna crew, after which proceed to function them as impartial however in an built-in vogue,” Martin says, including that when the deal is absolutely wrapped, customers can count on to begin seeing modifications within the coming weeks and months.
“The ambition is to do issues the place it is sensible,” 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 stay teaching, that’s on Runna after which Strava frankly has higher tech than us for recording in your telephone. In the mean time, the consumer sort of will get handed off numerous occasions.”
“…I genuinely imagine that is a tremendous factor for all customers. I’m blissful to inform everybody about it and sit on Reddit for the entire day to reply everybody’s questions.”
One factor that hasn’t been determined but is how subscriptions will work. Strava has a free tier however prices $79.99 a yr for premium options, whereas Runna prices $119.99 yearly. Whereas Runna at the moment makes use of Strava’s third-party API, till the main points are hammered out, customers will nonetheless must subscribe to each providers to get the complete vary of options. When pressed additional on the problem, Martin says he envisions the Runna acquisition to be extra akin to when the corporate purchased Recuperate Athletics, a prehab and harm prevention app, than when it acquired FATMAP, a 3D-mapping platform. With a Strava subscription, Recuperate Athletics is basically a free perk however features as a separate app. FATMAP’s app, nevertheless, was retired in late 2024 and its tech/options have been integrated into Strava.
Subscriptions shall be a thorny problem 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 inclined to react badly to any modifications 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 indignant and confused. You solely want to take 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 bought fairly an lively Reddit group, and I do know there’s in all probability fairly a big overlap between them and the robust 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 blissful 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 comparable to this, but it surely’s so clearly the proper 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.”