a snip on runtastic…...

“There’s Fitbit in the US, there’s Jawbone in US, they do have big pockets and a lot of VC money, sure,” Gschwandtner told MobiHealthNews last July, when the company launched its Runtastic Orbit wearable. “But here in Europe … nobody has a clue about wearables. Whereas Runtastic, we have a really strong brand here in Europe, I would say we’re the known brand either in the running apps or the whole mobile health fitness, we’re the number one company here and we have a really good track record. And we think with our 85 million downloads, with our newsletter of 20 million people, we don’t start from scratch. We have finished distribution here in Europe, so we’re already on the shelves.”

Runtastic continues to invest in its hardware. The Orbit was updated last month to add some smartphone-like functionality: push notifications from the users smartphone. According to a statement from Adidas, Runtastic has more than 140 million downloads and 70 million registered users.

The acquisition obviously invites comparisons to Under Armour, which bought MapMyFitness for $150 million in November 2013 and spent an additional $560 million to buy MyFitnessPal and Endomondo in February, giving the company a major foothold in food, nutrition, and fitness tracking as well as in the European fitness app market. It later picked up Austin, Texas-based Gritness for an undisclosed sum.