Strava vs Garmin – a PR stunt all along? CEO’s coincidental IPO interview with FT.com suggests so

Updated: 27 October 2025

In an FT.com article (13 Oct), Strava’s CEO, Michael Martin, confirms the company’s intention to go public with an IPO in the USA.

Rumours elsewhere suggest it will occur in early 2026, following news that both Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan have been invited to pitch for roles to help secure Strava easier access to capital and the ability to make further acquisitions.

Readers might find it a coincidence that Strava’s odd legal case against Garmin was announced at a very similar time to the initial interview between its CEO and FT. The timing is highly coincidental and throws doubt on the motivations behind the Garmin case, adding suspicion that this was a PR stunt designed to raise awareness of the company’s wider profile.

IPO – Why Now, What’s Changed?

Strava launched in 2009 and steadily grew from its initial concept, allowing cyclists to compete virtually over sections of public roads—segments. Leaderboards were added, advanced rider statistics and plans helped performance athletes improve, and the maps used to show the segments were quickly repurposed and developed into a route creation ecosystem. Strava expanded, covering sports beyond cycling and bringing in completed activities from original device makers and market leaders like Garmin.

The company experienced the same growth spurt as other parts of the fitness industry during the COVID-19 pandemic and has been a further beneficiary of Gen Z’s significant interest in running activities.

Sensor Tower now estimates that Strava had 50 million monthly active users in 2025 and a staggering 80% year-on-year increase in app downloads.

Strava captures very little original data and relies on key partners like Garmin and Apple. It faces a high risk to its business model if its key data sources are disrupted.

Several companies offer similar platform experiences but on a smaller scale or subtly focused in different ways and geographies; the best-known examples are Ride with GPS and Komoot.

Strava’s Revenue

Strava’s most important revenue source is its paid subscription (Strava Premium), which adds useful but not strictly necessary features to the free Strava experience. Subscriptions are $11.99/month ($79.99/year). Strava also receives revenues from partner-led athletic challenges and brand partnerships (e.g. Airbnb).

A recent report by Sensor Tower estimated Strava’s revenue to September 2025 to be $180 million, with between two and two and a half million subscribers, further suggesting that about 5% of Strava’s active users pay a subscription, which seems reasonable.

Claim: A company representative was reported by the FT to claim the real revenues are ‘far higher’, but declines to elaborate further

Strava and its history of acquisitions

Strava has developed many features internally and has also used external consultants to cover specialist areas, such as the introduction of Relative Effort (Dr. Marco Altini (HRV4Training, 2018). It’s better known for strategically acquiring key capabilities, notably.

• RaceShape (heatmap, October 2012),
• Beacon (safety features, 2018),
• Recover Athletics (injury prevention app, pre-2023),
• Fatmap (3D mapping, January 2023),
• Runna (running training plans, April 2025), and
• The Breakaway (cycling training assets, May 2025).

Market Trends and Market Saturation

Strava’s growth is driven by mass participation in sports (running, cycling) and low-level activities (hiking).

Triathlon introduced new athletes in the late 2010s, followed by the indoor cycling boom during COVID-19. That boom, in turn, fed a similar boom in outdoor cycling. Those booms have now stabilised or reversed.

The key current mass sporting trends are increased participation of women in sports and an increase in the number of runners, particularly from Gen Z. The prime motivations are fitness and well-being rather than competition.

Key evidence can be found in the number of applicants for major global marathons.

• London Marathon, 2026: 1.1 million applicants (+31% YoY), and
• NYC Marathon, 2026: 200,000+ applicants (+22% YoY).

Strava’s Major Strength

Strava’s major strength is that it is the de facto sports social and performance platform. Its vast number of active users gives it a commercial inertia that is hard to stop.

Furthermore, it is app and device-agnostic for its sources. Every new sports app immediately secures a link to Strava.

Strava’s Major Risks

Strava’s fundamental risk is that it has little original data and relies on its biggest partnership, Garmin. If Garmin turned off the data one day, Strava would not have a viable business the next day; it is that simple.

[Strava] relies on its biggest partnership, Garmin.

Secondary risks include Strava’s loss-making status and burning cash, as evidenced by multiple funding rounds. Many subscribers are also unconvinced by the benefits of subscription. This is a chronic risk that Strava continually struggles to manage, ever trying to keep itself relevant to its subscribers.

Competition and conflict with Garmin

Strava’s closest competitor by service is Ride with GPS; the two platforms offer similar services.

However, its biggest threat is also its biggest supplier—Garmin. Garmin Connect has all of the key features that Strava has, including more. What Garmin lacks is device agnosticism. Only Garmin device owners can use the Garmin Connect platform.

Let’s turn to the recent legal action initiated by Strava against Garmin. Given the above facts, the move seems reckless and superficially likely to jeopardise its potential IPO in 2026.

The essence of the case is that there are two patent infringement actions, both of which appear spurious to most commentators, and then there are claims of a breach of contract, which may have merit.

However, Strava has gone on record to say that these claims do not represent its true grievance. It then erroneously states as a grievance that Garmin requires Strava to place the Garmin logo on every workout sourced from Garmin Connect. That claim is untrue, as evidenced by Garmin’s API guidelines.

Strava then announced that its data suppliers must comply with the same Garmin API guidelines.

All that is left is for Strava to formally state that it also complies with the Garmin API guidelines, and the matter should be over. Based on its other actions, that appears to be a foregone conclusion

Edit: Strava has now stated it will comply with Garmin’s guidelines and dropped its legal case (22 Oct 2025).

Leadership and Investors

CEO Michael Martin (since 2024) has been focused on user and subscriber growth and has come from a successful stint leading Nike’s connected fitness apps.

Investors include Sequoia Capital and Jackson Square Ventures. The last funding round valued the company at $2.2 billion (May 2025).

Outlook

Strava’s credibility depends on user growth and increased sports participation. The outlook for the foreseeable future looks promising, boosted by demographic profiles and a general trend amongst the young toward healthier lifestyles. The lack of competition at a similar scale is also helpful.

However, its ability to be attractive to investors depends on subscriber growth, and the company is notoriously secretive about these figures. The outlook here for subscriptions specifically depends on remaining meaningful to existing subscribers and attracting new subscribers—its subscription tier needs its features continually boosted, and price rises need to be justified.

The immediate short-term outlook relies on integrating and expanding the RUNNA app within the broader Strava ecosystem. However, selling running plans is becoming increasingly difficult as device manufacturers have excellent existing competition, and some AI running plans are already highly competent.

In the longer term, we might look to more subjective indicators of success. There is a prevalent mantra among many athletes, said half jokingly but with truth behind it.

If it isn’t on Strava, it wasn’t done.

Opinion

Strava would not have started the court case without thought and advice. It was a calculated decision.

Strava has already signalled a de facto end to the litigation by instructing its suppliers to obey Garmin’s rules, which require the attribution of Garmin’s data transfer mechanisms.

The coincidental timing of a major interview between FT.com and Strava’s CEO suggests that last week’s events were merely a stunt to raise awareness of Strava.

One conclusion is that this has all been a PR stunt, and we all fell for it.

Perhaps the only real downside to the stunt is that it highlights to potential investors the significant dependency of Strava on data from Garmin. So don’t be surprised if the two companies announce a long-term partnership agreement next week; then, we will know for sure that this has all been orchestrated.

• More: Strava vs Garmin – the Climbdown Part I – It’s Over
• More: Strava vs Garmin – the Climbdown Part II – Downfall