The social fitness app where runners and cyclists record and share their activities, with a London office as its European hub and the Runna running coaching app now in its group.
Strava is an app and website that lets people record their runs, rides, walks and dozens of other activities, then share them with friends. It tracks routes by GPS and records details such as speed, elevation and heart rate, and it imports data from watches and bike computers made by companies such as Garmin and Wahoo. Users follow each other and give "kudos", the app's version of a like, and compete on segments, which are stretches of road or trail with leaderboards. A paid subscription adds extra features such as route building. Its Strava Metro service uses anonymised activity data to help city planners improve cycling and walking routes.
Strava launched in 2009 in San Francisco, started by Mark Gainey and Michael Horvath, who met in the Harvard rowing crew in the 1980s, with several co-founders. Michael Martin, a former YouTube executive, became chief executive in December 2023. We did not find a short mission statement on the pages we read, so we have not invented one. Its Bristol relocation announcement said the platform lets cyclists and runners track and analyse their activities and offers motivation and a sense of community. In 2025 it bought the running coaching app Runna and the cycling app Breakaway.
On the UK side, Strava has a long history of European operations. In 2016 it announced that its European operation would move from London to Bristol, with an international marketing team. A later BusinessCloud report, which we could not date, said Strava was expanding its London footprint to strengthen the city as its European hub, with chief people officer Michele Bousquet saying that investing in offices was an investment in its people. Its job listings also appear on London tech job boards. We could not confirm the current size of the London office, or whether the Bristol office still exists.
On people and culture, the pages we could read say little. The chief people officer's statement suggests a company that sees its offices as a way to bring staff together. Strava's own community is a big part of the culture: users create GPS drawings known as Strava art, join clubs and challenges, and talk about their runs and rides. The company has faced criticism about privacy settings and cheating on leaderboards and has said it added tools to respond to those concerns.
The jobs in a company like this include software and data engineers, product designers, researchers, marketing and community teams, partnerships staff who work with brands and events, customer support, and people and finance teams. UK-based roles are more likely in marketing, partnerships and community because those functions face the European market, but this is our inference from the 2016 and BusinessCloud reports, not a listed fact. Anyone who loves sport and wants to see how tech brings people together could find a fit here.
Website: www.strava.com
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