The social fitness app Strava made two acquisitions last month and changed it. On Thursday, Strava acquired cycling app The Breakaway, following last month’s acquisition of Runna.
Incubated in Y Combinator’s Summer 2021 class, this breakaway uses AI to create a personalized training plan for cyclists working towards specific goals. Runna, a UK-based Jamjar app, works similarly, but is built for runners rather than cyclists.
Needless to say, Strava has shown a very strong interest in selling training planning tools to its users.
STRAVA is one of the best-selling and most popular fitness apps, so users can track their workouts and plan their outdoor running routes, but they’re differentiated by adding social components to see where, when and how users will exercise (as good as Strava is published by default).
Among power users, Strava’s Public API has become essential for athletes who want to customize how they interact with Strava data. According to Strava CEO Michael Martin, there are hundreds of different training apps integrated with Strava.
Apps like Runna and The Breakaway stood out against Strava for their quality, but some users may prefer another third-party app to plan their exercise routine. However, the company has reassured its users that there is no plan to stop offering open APIs.
Strava doesn’t make the exact clarity or how, or how, or how, or how, the functionality of Runna and Breakaway is integrated into the Strava app. Martin said Runna will at least remain a standalone app, so it’s likely that BreakAway will follow a similar plan.
“There are many opportunities to enhance the user’s journey,” Martin said after the acquisition of Runna. “Think about how runners plan their routes in Strava and train with their runva and then go back to Strava to share. We want to reduce the friction in that loop.”
Also, it has not yet been decided whether pricing for these more premium products will change. Currently, the annual STRAVA subscription costs around $80 per year, while the annual Runna and Breakaway subscription costs around $120 and $70 respectively. However, last month, Martin said there were no plans to change pricing or remove access to free versions of these products.