Under Armour acquires “fitness search engine” Gritness

Under Armour is making a push for the data-driven fitness world as it continues to quietly acquire fitness tech companies. The workout apparel giant recently purchased Gritness Inc., a software company for fitness schedule management located in Austin, Texas.

According to the Gritness website, “Gritness was created by athletes who were fed-up with the level of effort required to get people together for a workout.” The company was created in 2012 and by September 2014 had received $130,000 in seed funding by an angel investor.

This marks the second major acquisition by Under Armour of a fitness startup company in Austin. The city is developing a highly sought after tech scene, and combined with the fact that Austin is one of the top 10 fittest cities, you can begin to see why Under Armour would want to build a location here.

Prior to acquiring Gritness, UA had its first ever acquisition with another Austin fitness-tech company, MapMyFitness Inc. The company paid $150 million for the startup and began to show an interest in data-driven fitness. The CEO and founder of MapMyFitness Inc. is now Under Armour’s chief digital officer.

MapMyFitness is a software company that produced an application that can monitor your fitness. So far, the app can be integrated into over 400 fitness tracking devices, sensors and wearables.

Round Rock-based tech company Light Bohrd Inc. is also working on a new product for Under Armour. In 2013, the tech company was selected from 4,000 startup applicants to receive a $25,000 top prize at the Under Armour Future Show where it showed running clothes with embedded lighting.

Under Armour opened their Austin, Texas based Connected Fitness Division office in March and plans to hire 100 technical workers this year to staff the 35,000 square foot downtown office.