RunKeeper parent company FitnessKeeper has grown from a simple run-tracking app in 2008 to a visionary company that launched a Health Graph for connecting all health-related devices and apps this summer -- all without touching any of the $1.5M it had raised, co-founder and CEO Jason Jacobs told LAUNCH in August.

Now the Boston-based startup has raised $10M in a Series B round led by Spark Capital so that it can hire more people, improve its core app and grow the Health Graph. Other participants are existing investor OATV, the venture arm of O’Reilly Media, and new investor Revolution Ventures, founded by AOL co-founder Steve Case.

Spark Capital has invested in Twitter, Tumblr and foursquare; OATV in foursquare, Chartbeat, Bitly and Tripit; and Revolution in Zipcar and LivingSocial. Jason confirmed they are working with Bijan Sabet at Spark Capital, whom he describes as an "avid RunKeeper user."

Jason met Steve Case at a conference in 2010 and has stayed in touch with him since then. Given Steve's interest in health-care reform and innovation, "When it came time to raise another round, getting him and his partner Tige Savage involved in our business was a no-brainer," says Jason. Tige is joining the company's board as an observer.

RunKeeper has now raised a total of $11.51M. Its $400K angel round took place in 2009 and the $1.1M Series A from OATV in 2010.

RunKeeper, which currently has 14 employees, is filling 10 positions in areas including engineering, product, user experience and operations.

Nearly 40 partners have integrated with the Health Graph, double the number since August, and "several hundred more are in development across a broad range of health categories" according to Jason.

Health Graph partners include companies that build on top of the aggregated health data, such as corporate wellness platform Limeade and fitness rewards platform Earndit, as well as data-sending apps like sleep-manager Zeo and connected health devices from Withings. For consumers, the Health Graph will be able to tell them what other apps might help them, or how much their sleep is affecting their weight loss, for example.

"The early success of the Health Graph has showed us that the world is ready for someone to step up and build a consumer health platform that ties together all of this disparate health information across categories," Jason told LAUNCH via email. "It also showed us just how much work is left to be done to make this vision a reality. "

RunKeeper's latest features, launched Oct. 31, include automatic pausing for when you stop moving and the ability to see your heart rate zones (if you're using a heart rate monitor). New features for the Android app launched the same day: the ability to capture on-the-fly photos of your activity and a workout countdown timer.

In late September, RunKeeper reported 467% growth since January 2010, to over 6.4M users who had logged 156M miles and 20K races in more than 8.4K cities across the world.

CONTACT INFO

Jason Jacobs
Email: jason at runkeeper dot com
Twitter: @jjacobs22
Google+: https://plus.google.com/102549562335071671085/posts
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/jason-jacobs/0/449/171

RunKeeper
Website: http://runkeeper.com/
Twitter: @runkeeper
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RunKeeper
Blog: http://blog.runkeeper.com/

Spark Capital
Website: http://www.sparkcapital.com/
Twitter: @sparkcapital
Bijan Sabet: @bijan

OATV
Website: http://oatv.com
Twitter: @oatv

Revolution Ventures
Website: http://www.revolution.com/
Twitter: @stevecase, @tigesavage

LAUNCH Blog