Copenhagen-based Endomondo is acquired by athletic apparel maker Under Armour, reports TechCrunch. The rumours about potential transaction started to evolve back in January (listen to podcast #10, where Karsten Deppert and Neil Murrey speculate about potential buyer). The deal was also closed the same month at 75€ million (85$ million), which makes it one of the most successful purchases of Danish startups in recent period.
“It has been a classic entrepreneurial experience with many ups and downs – but we always believed in the vision. Endomondo has helped so many people find joy in exercising and as part of Under Armour we can reach out to even more people on a global scale. Our mission is unaltered – we will still be Endomondo focusing on making exercise more fun and our team will still be based in Copenhagen. For our users this means that we will have more resources to grow and improve our product. We are looking forward to this next step,” says founder of Endomondo, Mette Lykke in official press-release.
Endomondo was founded in 2007 by three Danish entrepreneurs Christian Birk, Jakob Jønck and Mette Lykke, who left their careers in management consulting at McKinsey & Company to pursue a new risky venture as entrepreneurs. Two co-founders Christian Birk and Jakob Jønck left operational side of the company a few years ago, but Mette Lykke remained company’s CEO up until now.
The past couple of years was particularly successful for Endomondo. With about 30 million downloads, the company reported to have over 20 million active users in 2013. Such high user growth rate is attributed to apps social networking aspects. Endomondo not only tracks different kinds of phisical activities but it also allows to connect with friends and other community members through app’s network in order to give or receive motivation for workouts.
Since the time of creation, the funding was never an easy question for Endomondo, especially in the earlier periods when GPS systems were not yet integrated parts of mobile phones. However, things turned around in 2010 with SEED Capital’s investment in the company. During the time of its existence Endomondo managed to raise 8.2$ million in financing.
Congratulations to Endomondo with a new page in company’s history!
