Getting to 100M users in 3 years
Why we led a new investment in Yodo Run, China’s leading social health & fitness service
Our latest deal was announced in China just before GMIC Beijing last week. We led a 100M RMB Series B round for Shenzhen-based Yodo Run, China’s leading social sports and fitness tracking app. We have been following the rapidly growing sports and fitness market in China closely for some time as part of our investment strategy in digital health. We have concluded that there is a massive opportunity for a company like Yodo Run. Our managing partner in China, David Tang, who led the deal is joining the Yodo Run board, and we are excited to back the company and actively support its growth over the years to come. Here’s why:
Market inflection point — China is doing more fitness and sports
China is fast becoming the largest market for sports and fitness trackers in the world. The Chinese sports and fitness market was already worth around $216B in 2016, yet we believe there is a lot of room for growth because the Chinese sports industry accounts for less of the country’s GDP compared to other countries. The sports market also remains significantly under-commercialized, with sports services only accounting for around 20% of the overall sport industry (vs. nearly 60% in the US). We believe China’s sports market is at an inflection point and that we will see vast growth over the next few years.
Product innovation leadership from China
In the Western markets, traditional activity tracking apps have done well with the tracking functionality, but product innovation beyond tracking seems to have stalled. Yodo Run offers a wide range of innovative features like monetary incentive mechanisms for healthy behavior, a large social community leveraging virtual and in-person group leaders and coaches, offline events, and an ecommerce store to monetize and reward healthy behavior with gifts and discounts. Yodo Run also gives users accurate and actionable insights from the data it collects.
Exceptional metrics with rapid growth and high engagement
Yodo run is growing rapidly and engaging users. The company launched its mobile service in May 2014; it now has more than 100M registered users and more than 6M daily active users. Yodo Run’s 30-day retention is on par with social network industry leaders. Based on NGP’s experience in mobile consumer services, Yodo Run’s engagement and overall growth metrics are very compelling, showing that the company has been successful in acquiring and retaining users.
Brilliant team — Backgrounds from China’s Internet giants
The single most important investment criteria for NGP overall is the team. After identifying Yodo Run as a company with great potential, NGP reached out to Yodo Run’s CEO, Hu Maowei, via cold WeChat messages. After the first meeting, we were very impressed with his passion and resourcefulness. Maowei comes from Xunlei, one of China’s most popular movie streaming services, where he built up their mobile business, getting millions of users hooked with a great product experience. Before that, he was a founding member of Tencent’s mobile game distribution platform. Most of the other co-founders have worked with Maowei at Xunlei or Tencent, so it is a team that knows each other and has worked together before. Most importantly, this team has the deep domain expertize and passion to build a significant company.
We are proud to be backing a company that helps the Chinese population get healthier and more motivated to exercise!
