Under its national plan, China is aiming to have a third of its population, 435 million people, regularly doing physical exercise by 2020. Sports & wellness innovations are in high demand - the market size of China's fitness and sports wearable devices is estimated to reach 24.4 billion yuan (3 Billion euros) with a compound annual growth rate of 18%.

Running is one of the most popular ways to exercise. While the annual injury rate among recreational runners rises up to 80%, bringing sound coaching knowledge to every runner is essential. Only a small fraction of recreational athletes can afford a professional coach. Runteq is developing an interactive human-like digital coach that utilizes sensor measurements, big data and artificial intelligence but also interacts with the user in a human manner. The coach listens to also subjective feelings, and guides to better running.

RUNTEQ plans to bring the next generation wearable running sensor and AI-driven digital coaching service onto market in 2019.As a first step of the collaboration, RUNTEQ and COMB+ are to elaborate go-to-market plan and engage fitness technology investors and industry partners for the next funding round.

“Our team is super excited to join forces with COMB+. China is a great opportunity and our scalable innovation can help millions of hobby runners to unleash their running potential and prevent injury in the coming years,” says Tommi Ojala, CEO of RUNTEQ.

RUNTEQ is a privately-held Finnish company, headquartered in Tampere. Its core technology consists of cutting-edge kinematics algorithms that turn inertial sensor measurements to meaningful kinematics and kinetic parameters. The company is developing artificial intelligence-based digital coaching solution that combines sensor-based analysis with athletes’ subjective feelings and sensations. Besides its own consumer product business, Runteq licenses its technology and makes software development for other brands.

COMB+ is a new-generation innovation incubator from Beijing, China. COMB+ has a unique "platform + investment" business model and it focuses on providing entrepreneurship services to and investing in early-stage startups in the technology and cultural industries. In addition to Beijing, COMB+ has an office in Helsinki. COMB+ runs Sino Track accelerator, designed to boost the growth of international startups in China. COMB+’s parent company SkyOcean has public listed companies in Hong Kong and mainland China.

Media contact

Tommi Ojala, CEO and Founder, Runteq Ltd

Mob. +358 50 562 0942

tommi@runteq.com