Strava started as a place to track your runs and rides. Now it wants to coach them, too—and maybe own the entire process along the way.
Over the past six weeks, the fitness platform has announced two major acquisitions: first, Runna, the AI-powered running training app that’s become a go-to for runners chasing PRs and marathon goals.
Then came The Breakaway, a lesser-known but increasingly popular cycling coaching tool with deep roots in data-driven performance.
On the surface, these might look like product expansions, smart bets on specialized tools. But taken together, they signal something bigger.
Strava isn’t just buying features. It’s building a fitness empire, one acquisition at a time.
What Strava Just Bought
Let’s start with the deals themselves.
Runna, founded by Dom Maskell and Ben Parker, launched in 2022 and scaled fast.
It offered something runners clearly wanted: personalized training plans that actually adapted to your progress.
No spreadsheets, no guesswork, just structured, coach-like guidance delivered through a clean mobile interface.
In 2024, Apple named it a finalist for its App of the Year, and by early 2025, the company had users in over 180 countries.
Strava’s own data backs up the strategy: in 2024, nearly 1 billion runs were uploaded to the platform, making running its fastest-growing sport. Among Gen Z users, especially, demand for coaching is rising fast.
Then there’s The Breakaway, a cycling app that offers daily training guidance, ride analysis, and gamified performance metrics.
Founded in the Y Combinator pipeline, it gained traction by doing what Strava never quite nailed: offering a roadmap for how to improve, not just a record of what you did.
Breakaway users reportedly upload twice as many activities to Strava as regular cyclists—a telling stat that makes clear what’s really being bought: engagement.
The Bigger Strategy: More Than Just New Features
In the press releases, Strava’s tone is upbeat and predictable: the apps will “remain separate,” both will benefit from “new investment,” and integrations will be rolled out “in the future.”
But this isn’t Strava’s first rodeo.
In recent years, the company has acquired Recover Athletics (a recovery and injury prevention app), Fatmap (3D mapping), and others.
In some cases, such as Fatmap, the product was eventually folded into Strava’s core offering, and the original app was shuttered. Others, like Recover, continue to operate independently, at least for now.
The pattern resembles the Big Tech playbook: absorb emerging tools before they become serious competitors. It’s what Google did with Waze, what Meta did with Moves, and what Apple did with Beddit.
Now, Strava appears to be running the same play in endurance sports.
The Subscription Squeeze Is Coming
Strava’s moves come amid a broader trend: the subscription-ization of endurance sports.
Garmin launched Connect+ earlier this year, bundling predictive insights and AI training tools into a new paid tier. Polar is following suit. Even WHOOP and Apple Fitness+ are carving out more coaching-style services.
In short, everyone is racing to become your training platform, your coach, and your social hub. And no one wants to be just a place to upload data.
For now, that’s still Strava’s core identity. But these acquisitions suggest a coming transformation: from open platform to closed ecosystem. From tracker to coach. From app to gatekeeper.
So, Should You Be Worried?
That depends.
If you’re already juggling Strava, Runna, and maybe a Garmin or Coros platform on the side, tighter integrations could simplify things. Fewer apps. Smarter features. More meaningful metrics.
But it also means fewer choices.
As smaller, independent apps get swallowed up, the endurance tech landscape risks becoming more homogeneous, and more expensive. It’s a shift that may serve Strava’s bottom line more than it serves the average runner.
Strava’s recent acquisitions are more than just business deals. They’re a blueprint for how the future of digital training is being built: not in a burst of innovation, but one acquisition at a time.
It’s consolidation with a smile.
For now, Strava insists that Runna and Breakaway are here to stay. But if the past is any indicator, it’s only a matter of time before “integration” starts to mean something else entirely.
And when the dust settles, endurance athletes may find that the open digital roads they once loved are starting to look a little more like tollways.
