Coopah, a coaching app for runners, is set to hit its stride with backing from big names in sport.
The startup was created in 2022 after co-founder Pete Cooper suffered a family bereavement that led him to severe depression. Running was his therapy, giving him purpose and a challenge: it transformed his physical and mental health and made him understand the impact that running regularly can have.
However while running has never been more popular, 58% of new runners give up on the sport within 30 days of starting. Coopah helps solve this by offering personalised training plans, real-time AI powered workout feedback, and community driven motivational support.
It syncs with the most popular fitness devices and platforms and helps people to both develop a running habit and beat their race goals.
Redrice Ventures and Active Partners led the £1.5 million seed round fundraise round, while London Marathon Events has doubled down on an initial investment into Coopah in 2023 by investing further.
Also participating in the round are Amrock Ventures and Tom Singh (Rianta Capital), as well as notable pro athlete investor Alistair Brownlee MBE and athletics super agent Ricky Simms.
Coopah is now the official training partner for the TCS London Marathon, which has helped spur the company’s growth in 2024. The funds will be used to fuel its growth and move the company towards its vision of bringing the medicine of running to everyone.
The company intends to make its training plans smarter and more adaptive using AI, and more flexible and social, knowing that runners really like to plan and complete their training runs together.
Meanwhile former Strava executive Gareth Nettleton (below), who previously served as a board member at Coopah, has now joined as chief marketing officer. Nettleton led global marketing at Strava from 2013-2021, helping the company scale to 100m+ registered athletes.
“We can’t wait to show the 500m existing global runners, and the thousands of people that start running every day, the power of Coopah,” said CEO and co-founder Dan Strang.
“Securing these funds and bringing this group of high quality investors on board is giving us the opportunity to invest in new growth channels which will put Coopah in front of the global running world.”
He continued: “Bringing Gareth on board to spearhead this growth effort is an incredibly exciting moment for the business. His passion for our mission and his wealth of knowledge on how to scale a consumer sports app make him a fantastic addition to Coopah’s leadership.”
Nettleton added: “The world is in a physical and mental health crisis. Running is one of the things that we believe can have a huge impact on that. It is medicine for both body and mind. I’m delighted to join Dan and Pete on this journey and look forward to scaling Coopah’s active community across the globe.”
Coopah is available in the App Store and Google Play. A Coopah subscription costs £79.99 annually or £14.99 per month.