Strava raises $18.5M in Series D

[MattTuck]

I'm personally interested in this company because it originated nearby, the CEO worked at the same school I do, and I'm a user of the product...

that said, interesting for folks that are following it.


Strava raises $18.5 million, makes Fitness and Freshness feature compatible with heart rate

Strava has raised $18.5 million in Series D funding according to ReCode. Sequoia Capital led the round, and partner Michael Moritz has become an advisor.

Strava is not yet profitable, but a company representative expressed confidence in a trend toward profitability, expecting to be in the black within 18 months. The company’s primary revenue stream is its sale of premium memberships, which cost $59 per year.

In Strava-related consumer news, the Fitness and Freshness graph available to Strava premium members, which monitors fitness and fatigue levels by graphing training load, is now compatible with heart rate data. Until recently, it required a power meter, as the training load score for each ride was calculated using power.

Those who don’t own a power meter, or don’t have one on every bike, simply have to ride with a heart rate strap to prevent gaps in training load data. That makes the Fitness and Freshness graph much more useful — data gaps throw it off and make it useless.

The heart rate-based training loads are calculated using Strava’s Suffer Score.

Read more at http://velonews.competitor.com/2014/10/news/week-tech-pave-clothing-strava-raises-18-5-million-wheels-manufacturing-eccentric_351588#V9eHHbXwmcmfsbbt.99

[kramnnim]

Heard about the $18.5m last week...wonder what they expect to start making money for them. Huge influx of premium customers?

The F&F graph update is good news, no power meter on my tandem...

[thegunner]

Heard about the $18.5m last week...wonder what they expect to start making money for them. Huge influx of premium customers?

The F&F graph update is good news, no power meter on my tandem...

they have the most valuable thing of all in the tech sector, they have users and therefore, user data.

[MattTuck]

they have the most valuable thing of all in the tech sector, they have users and therefore, user data.

Yeah, among other things... I think they have a service to municipalities that gives info on where and when people are riding bikes so that towns/cities can use that info in their planning.

Also, they probably have a ridiculously detailed database of riding habits and patterns... from which, probably a lot of personal private info could be backed out.

[Saint Vitus]

All I know is that since I began using 2 weeks ago, I've crashed twice and been stung by a bee. Free has cost me over $250 so far and I've only ridden 4 days out of the last 14 and will be out another week or 2 while my shoulder heals from Friday's fiasco.

[old fat man]

Until they figure out a way to get 90% of users to be paying members, I don't think they'll ever be a profitable company, and will never likely pay back the capital they've borrowed. I've never paid for their service, but I use it everyday. The free membership offers me more than enough functionality. I'd love to see the data on how many users they've converted to paying members and the percentage of paying members they've retained after converting. Must be decent if they were able to land another $18.5 million

How much are third parties (municipalities, bike companies) ever going to pay for the data? $30K? That's a lot of companies requesting data.

[makoti]

The bee was likely released by a competitor fitness app.

[54ny77]

for the life of me i don't understand the purpose of strava. if you're doing any route, the benchmark is whatever time you last did it at, not somebody else's. how hard is that to remember?

when i think of strava i look at it as an entity that could get served during discovery to extract info i'd just as soon not be made available. they've got a nice trove of big data on a lot of people that could be mined or sold. for example, what if someone has a medical condition but knowingly rides despite it? what's to prevent an insurance company to deny a claim based on its knowledge that someone is doing something that a doctor explicitly recommended they not do, regardless of a dubious (at best) correlation?

crazy as it sounds, i know of someone who was trying to settle with an insurance company on a medical issue (completely and totally unrelated to cycling) and was denied, based upon their assertion that the individuals' usac racing results, which were found during their research, in their view invalidated the claim. it was a straw man argument on their part. typical sleazy insurance defense firm.

double edged sword, glass half empty/half full, and all that jazz i suppose....

[avalonracing]

Wow, if Strava went out of business I know a lot of guys who would probably quit riding as Strava seems to be their reason to ride... Scratch that, their reason to LIVE.

[Saint Vitus]

The bee was likely released by a competitor fitness app.

Mostly likely a drone, since I never did find it...

[cinema]

for the life of me i don't understand the purpose of strava. if you're doing any route, the benchmark is whatever time you last did it at, not somebody else's. how hard is that to remember?


It's really great for me because I don't ride with a computer. I always have my phone anyway so it makes keeping track of my miles a LOT easier. I basically use it to track how many miles I have on equipment (tires, chain, bike, etc).

I assume that soon enough there will be ads because that's how every one of these free apps makes most of their money.

[bcroslin]

Until they figure out a way to get 90% of users to be paying members

They just need a few hundred thousand dummies like me who accept their invitation to try the premium app and then forget to cancel before the trial ends. :mad:

[jpw]

Sequoia Capital?

It won't be making a profit. It will be sold. Series D sounds like squeeze on the equity of the founders.

[unterhausen]

Wow, if Strava went out of business I know a lot of guys who would probably quit riding as Strava seems to be their reason to ride... Scratch that, their reason to LIVE.

I see the value of the company as identifying "stravaholes." I think this information could be worth billions to companies looking for sociopaths. Recent studies show that most successful managers display sociopathic tendencies. Of course, these potential CEO's would have to be weaned from their obsession with Strava. (yes, I crack myself up, why do you ask?)

[shovelhd]

Sequoia Capital?

It won't be making a profit. It will be sold. Series D sounds like squeeze on the equity of the founders.

Plausible.

I use Strava to share my workouts with a few friends. I could care less about leaderboard stuff.

[MattTuck]

This is the kind of thing that some strategy folks at a big tech company could convince themselves is the core or add on to their 'quantified self' health ecosystem.

I bet it gets sold to Apple or Google for $50M in the next 18 months.

[old fat man]

This is the kind of thing that some strategy folks at a big tech company could convince themselves is the core or add on to their 'quantified self' health ecosystem.

I bet it gets sold to Apple or Google for $50M in the next 18 months.

That still won't get the investors their money back. They've had more than $50 million in funding already.

[Anarchist]

I was an early adopter of Strava, Premium user. I quit using Strava completely a year ago.

I imagine I am not the only one.

[Brainbike]

I use Strava frequently and do like the app, but here's the rub. The functionality they offer for free is great. They will struggle big time to convert freemium to premium, just like The Dropbox problem. If they go the advertising route, users will bail faster than you can log a KOM holding your phone while in the car. This model baffles me because I work in this same type of industry, I compete against the freemium model, but they get all the mindshare and post consistent losses????

[professerr]

When the phrase "Series D" is used in a title on a cycling forum thread and people know what it means, the end (of this boom cycle) must be near.

[makoti]

Plausible.

I use Strava to share my workouts with a few friends. I could care less about leaderboard stuff.

I laugh to myself (ok, maybe out loud) whenever I show up in the top ten rankings of ANY segments around here. I'm old, pretty slow, and generally don't care. I think it just goes to prove that people who can REALLY ride don't bother with this junk.
I use it to track my miles, equipment use, and to kind of watch what a few (very few) friends are doing.

[laupsi]

I laugh to myself (ok, maybe out loud) whenever I show up in the top ten rankings of ANY segments around here. I'm old, pretty slow, and generally don't care. I think it just goes to prove that people who can REALLY ride don't bother with this junk.
I use it to track my miles, equipment use, and to kind of watch what a few (very few) friends are doing.

tis true to a sense that those seriously training don't have the time or concern about KOMs or top 10 leader boards. used to go for those KOMs and top 10's when I first joined, then got serious again about training. to me Strava is simply another tool to plan rides and share data w/friends. don't even look at the top 10 lists any more.

[shovelhd]

I think that if Strava goes under, something will replace it. The demand is there.

[Bostic]

I started using Strava in June of 2010 when I first got a Garmin Edge 500. Before that I was using a Polar CS200 and logging everything manually. Back then Strava limited you to a whopping grand total of 5 uploads until you had to pay. Then they changed it to 5 or 7 a month (I forget). I bought a Power Tap later that year and decided to pay the yearly subscription. I've been re-upping each year and have been happy with the features that the subscription offers. The personal heatmap is cool to look at. I can clearly see the outlines of the double centuries I have done over the past four years and zooming way out on it the little blue line on Maui from the ride up Haleakala.

[old fat man]

I started using Strava in June of 2010 when I first got a Garmin Edge 500. Before that I was using a Polar CS200 and logging everything manually. Back then Strava limited you to a whopping grand total of 5 uploads until you had to pay. Then they changed it to 5 or 7 a month (I forget). I bought a Power Tap later that year and decided to pay the yearly subscription. I've been re-upping each year and have been happy with the features that the subscription offers. The personal heatmap is cool to look at. I can clearly see the outlines of the double centuries I have done over the past four years and zooming way out on it the little blue line on Maui from the ride up Haleakala.

funny, i did the same thing with my Haleakala ride. you can get free heat maps from this site: http://www.jonathanokeeffe.com/strava/map.php

[coffeecake]

I think that if Strava goes under, something will replace it. The demand is there.

Agreed. There are many people who really live for being able to share their rides in a public competitive arena. Strava has certainly changed the way I ride, and to many people it is motivating and possibly their only outlet for competition.

[mecse]

I'm personally interested in this company because it originated nearby, the CEO worked at the same school I do, and I'm a user of the product...

that said, interesting for folks that are following it.

Series D is kind of worrying. That means they've taken and taken money and are having a hard time finding a business model.

[laupsi]

Series D is kind of worrying. That means they've taken and taken money and are having a hard time finding a business model.

sounds like a company we all know and love from a by gone era, no?