Mo’ money for Fitmo: Sportstech startup reaches €150 K funding target with Olympian endorsement

Update: Fitmo reached the € 150 K target for their crowdfunding campaign in record time, just days after announcing the campaign. Founder Dave Roeloffs is deeply grateful to all investors big and small who chipped in to get Fitmo past the finish line: “We are extremely happy to see that so many people share our vision to help democratise personalised coaching services”.

FitTech startup Fitmo has kicked off a crowdfunding campaign through Seedrs in order to raise €150,000. The sports-startup aims to use the money to break into the UK’s lucrative £626m personal training industry. In addition, the company has managed to score a marathon-sized endorsement with legendary long distance runner Haile Gebrselassie stepping up as the startup’s first celebrity ambassador.

The Fitmo’s connected to the Jawbone. Now hear the word of their app.

Fitmo started out in 2014, as founder Dave Roeloffs came up with an app that enables users to browse through a whole online marketplace of personal trainers. They can select the trainers and the programs that are right for them, while trainers get to train multiple clients at once through the app. In its first year the company already partnered up with Jawbone, which produces the popular Jawbone UP bracelets.

The Great Deal with The Great Run

Fitmo made its first steps into the UK recently by striking a deal with The Great Run Company, which is the UK’s largest running event organiser. This way Fitmo can get access to The Great Run’s 300,000 annual participants and offer them personalised coaching. And using their app has also gotten more appealing as the company found a fantastic spokesperson. What better way to promote your product than getting an endorsement from a living legend to endorse it?

Striking gold with a celebrity spokesperson

Fitmo can now officially call itself an Olympian-backed company as they have presented Ethiopian athlete Haile Gebrselassie as its first celebrity ambassador. The athlete states he shares Fitmo’s beliefs that “a human connection is vital for motivation, behaviour change, preventing unnecessary injuries and breaking through personal barriers”. The two-time Golden medal-winning Olympian has created his own training packages for Fitmo, which are specifically aimed at improving your running skills while decreasing the risk of injury. Haile says: “In 25 years of international running I gained a lot of experience and knowledge. Now it’s time to share my knowledge with you, in the hope that you come to enjoy running as much as I do.” Pun intended it’s safe to say Fitmo has already struck gold with this multiple medal-winning spokesperson, as the company can now truly brand itself as “The app that lets you train with the world’s best”.