Axel Springer acquires a 50.1 percent majority stake in Runtastic, one of the world’s leading providers of mobile apps for the measurement of sport and fitness data. Runtastic was founded in 2009 by Florian Gschwandtner, Alfred Luger, René Giretzlehner and Christian Kaar. The registered office of the company is in Pasching near Linz (Austria). The four founders remain shareholders and will continue to run the company as Managing Directors. The Austrian business angel Dr. Johann Hansmann also remains on board as a shareholder.
Runtastic offers a combination of mobile sport apps and a web portal, on which sport data can be stored and administered, and individual training plans generated. In the meantime Runtastic is operating worldwide and has more than 90 employees. More than 19 million users are registered on Runtastic.com and more than 46 million Runtastic apps have been downloaded. More than 100,000 are currently being downloaded every day.
By taking a majority holding in Runtastic, Axel Springer is expanding its digital sport portfolio around its core brands BILD, BILD am SONNTAG, SPORT BILD and WELT. Axel Springer acquired a majority stake in the transfermarkt.de football portal as early as 2008. BILD offers clips of highlights from 1st and 2nd Bundesliga matches on all bild.de digital channels from the 2013/2014 season.
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