Less than a month after it was reported that Strava was making serious progress towards becoming a public company, its CEO has strongly hinted that this is likely to happen in the not-too-distant future to open up new opportunities for the world’s foremost social fitness app, while falling short of providing specific details or a date. 

> How to use Strava to make you fitter

In an interview with the Financial Times, Michael Martin said that a public listing on the stock exchange “provides easy access to capital in case we wanted to do more and bigger acquisitions”, saying that the company’s intention is to go public “at some point”.

As first reported by Reuters in September, Strava has already invited major banks including JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs to make pitches ahead of a potential IPO.

Since taking over from his predecessor and Strava co-founder Michael Horvath, Martin has prioritised growth and the number of paying subscribers, with the recent acquisition of would-be rival apps seemingly an effort to offer more value from the Strava Premium subscription. 

> Is Strava still worth paying for?

After acquiring 3D mapping app Fatmap in 2023 (and shutting it down a year later, before reviving some of its features in-app), Strava’s mini buying spree in 2025 has so far included the Runna running app and The Breakaway personalised cycling training app. Both are only available to paying Strava users, and the acquisitions have pushed the company’s value up to $2.2 billion. 

Martin can boast of strong user growth during his time in charge, adding approximately 12 million users since 2024 to boost Strava’s monthly active users up to 50 million, according to a graph in the Financial Times report; though 2023 also saw a significant increase in users. 

“Growth profiles like ours… are particularly uncommon,” added Martin in his interview with the FT.

“It attracts a lot of attention, especially from bankers.”

Strava Heatmap - Alpe d'Huez.PNGStrava Heatmap – Alpe d’Huez.PNG (credit: road.cc)

Fittingly Strava has also made headlines recently for the rather public way it has responded to questions around its lawsuit against Garmin. 

Strava demanded that Garmin stopped selling its devices over an alleged patent infringement with regards to Strava’s own segment and heatmap features. Strava’s chief product officer, Matt Salazar, took the unusual step of posting a statement about the lawsuit on Reddit, titled “setting the record straight on Garmin”, in which he explains why Strava objected to Garmin’s new developer guidelines that state the Garmin logo is present on activity posts where a Garmin device was used. Fitness watch and accessory brand Suunto has since filed a separate lawsuit, claiming that several Garmin watches infringe on five of its patents. 

If and when it goes public, will Strava be offering up some free shares for segment leaders? That could make KOM/QOM hunting a whole new level of competitive…Â