How Strava ran toward a comeback and set its sights on an IPO

We’re now in double-digit January, and there’s no time of the year when more people are thinking about exercising.

Thinking about exercising, of course, does very little. The trick remains actually running, cycling, or doing jumping jacks consistently. But motivation and stick-to-itiveness are tricky, Justin Shields, founder of LA’s Venice Run Club, knows better than most. Starting from zero in the pandemic, Shields has seen his Wednesday summer runs grow to more than 500 people, even hitting a 1,000-runner peak a couple of years ago. Strava—a longstanding fitness tracking app with social media features—has played a key role in keeping everyday runners running, said Shields.

“When you see regular people do things, that’s more inspirational than… the 110-pound Kenyan runner running a two-hour marathon,” he told Fortune. “That’s very cool, but you’re not going to relate to him more than the guy who’s working a 9-to-5, has a baby, and is still going out to run. That’s relatable. Being able to see each other, that’s connection. Strava is glue.”

Strava’s story is as winding as it is anomalous. Founded in 2009 by Michael Horvath and Mark Gainey, Strava first rose to prominence among cyclists. In the years since, the app has been at the center of long-running privacy debates, dealt with the occasional lawsuit, and lived through a years-long slowdown. In tech, where growth is king, that usually means curtains. But about 17 years after its founding, Strava has filed to go public, according to last week’s report in The Information. This is hardly surprising—it’s been long-rumored (on Friday, Strava added Barry McCarthy, who took Netflix and Spotify public as CFO, to its board). And while Strava is not confirming or commenting on IPO plans, I spoke to CEO Mike Martin about IPO readiness late last year.

“I think the market is largely ready,” Martin told me. “What I see right now is high-quality companies doing well. And I think in ways people haven’t necessarily understood until now is that Strava meets and exceeds [expectations] in all those categories.” 

One in four people in the U.K. is on Strava, and there are more than 180 million users on the app. And about a decade after Michael Moritz led a round for Sequoia Capital valuing Strava at $200 million, the VC stalwart reupped, leading a May 2025 round valuing the company at $2.2 billion. How did this roughly 17-year-old startup get its groove back? Andrew Reed, Sequoia partner and Strava board member, says it comes down to a few things: a global running tailwind, the company’s move into personalized training through the April 2025 acquisition of Runna, and Strava’s competitive moat that’s actually bolstered rather than hindered by the company’s age. 

“It’s one of the last independent network effects-consumer platforms,” said Reed. “It has this genuine moat that afforded it years of walking in the woods, unchanging. It had that network effect that kept the community engaged and allowed it to retain a market position that’s compelling years later.”

Martin joining as CEO in January 2024 also made a difference, said Reed. Martin’s lens is unique—a lifelong athlete, he previously served as an executive at YouTube and at Nike’s China business. (Founders Horvath and Gainey have stepped back from the business, Strava confirms.) Martin has been thinking about Strava as a business that reaches across generations. Which makes sense, because the company’s new era has been shepherded in by Gen Z runners, especially women. 

“It’s a platform that was originally predominantly filled with Boomers and Gen X—when it started about 70% of the population were Boomers and Gen X on Strava,” said Martin. “Now, more than 70% of the population are millennials and Gen Z. It’s sort of like Disney in that it’s a platform for every generation, as opposed to a platform that attracts one generation.” 

Gen Z, Martin says, are particularly more likely to be multi-sport than Gen Xers. This has influenced Strava to expand beyond cycling and running. 

“Gen Z and millennials—especially Gen Z—are multi‑sport by definition,” said Martin. “So what once was predominantly a cycling app… one-third of all activities on Strava are now walks or hiking or strength training, things like that.” 

As a potential IPO comes into view, Martin told me last year, the goal will ultimately be for Strava to be “unquestionably counted among best-in-breed publics”—which, to me, raises the question: What do you compare Strava to? It certainly on some level competes with social platforms (but not quite) and on another level competes with wearables (but also not quite). 

We’ll have to wait until the S-1 becomes public to get a better sense of Strava’s business fundamentals (Martin told The Wall Street Journal in May that the company was on track to hit $500 million in annual recurring revenue soon).

“To me, Strava is what we all hoped the future of the Internet would be 15 years ago,” said Sequoia’s Reed. “These amazingly deep, niche experiences that serve something important to you. The Internet today is mostly large platform companies that have subsumed every little subcategory, and there are so few independently scaled properties that matter. It’s, what, Reddit and Strava?… It’s its own unique thing, and that’s what the Internet should be.”

See you tomorrow, 

Allie Garfinkle
X: @agarfinks
Email: alexandra.garfinkle@fortune.com
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This story was originally featured on Fortune.com