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November 14, 2013 08:00 pm GMT

Under Armour Buys Mobile Workout Veteran MapMyFitness For $150M As It Looks To Keep Pace In Digital Fitness

1470380_666480976717105_650929279_nWith origins dating back to 2005, MapMyFitness has become a veteran of the online health and fitness space, having built a suite of websites and apps (like MapMyRUN.com, MapMyRIDE.com, MapMyWALK.com, et al) that allow fitness novices and enthusiasts alike to track and store their running, cycling, walking and hiking activity. Over the years, the startup has rounded out its expanding fitness platform with a bevy of complementary services like route planning, nutrition tracking, fitness calculators, event planning and by integrating with over 400 trackers, devices and wearables. Today, MapMyFitness owns one of the largest mobile fitness communities out there, with 20 million registered users, tens of millions of downloads across its mobile devices and 9 million monthly active users. Apparently, this was a footprint in the fitness world that proved too enticing to ignore for one of the biggest names in athletic apparel. This morning, Under Armour, the Baltimore-based sports clothing giant whose sweat-wicking, synthetic fabrics made it the poster child for next-gen performance apparel, announced today that it will be acquiring MapMyFitness in a deal worth up to $150 million. While Under Armour has one of the more recognizable brands in the athletic apparel world, the company was slow out of the gates in the race to digitize and, consequently, is on a mission to modernize and maintain its relevance in an increasingly mobile world. By acquiring MapMyFitness, a leader in fitness and activity tracking for mobile devices, Under Armour now has the foundation on which in plans to build a new, digital training experience and mobile fitness platform. In addition, Under Armour plans to use its latest acquisition to accelerate its plans to enter the biometric measurement and tracking arena. Fitness tracking is a space in which the Baltimore-based company has traditionally lagged behind other athletic giants, like Nike, which launched its social fitness platform back in 2006 (Nike+) and today counts over 20 million members in its ranks. Since then Nike has launched its own successful activity tracker, the Fuelband, as well as a bevy of related mobile fitness apps and even a TechStars-powered startup accelerator. The market for fitness apps, devices and services, while emergent, has been growing like gangbusters over the last few years, and Gartner said in a recent report that it expects the market to grow from $1.6 billion this year to $5 billion by 2016. As a result, a gaggle of companies

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