Irvine-based startup Pear Sports LLC has signed a deal with Finish Line Inc. to distribute its wearable device in the Indianapolis-based company’s growing line of specialty running stores.
The strategic partnership kicked off last week in select stores under Finish Line’s Running Specialty Group, which operates 59 locations in 13 states and Washington, D.C.
The $99 Pear Mobile Training Intelligence System fuses a wearable device with sensors attached to the body and a mobile audio coaching application.
The relationship between the companies was forged in late May when Finish Line became a minority investor in Pear after it raised $5.6 million in a second venture round.
“They were interested in building a core connection to their consumers,” Robert Allison, cofounder and chief executive of Pear Sports.
He is also the founder and managing partner of Innovate Partners, a quiet Irvine venture capitalist firm that led the funding round and has invested in about 15 companies since launching a $25 million fund in 2012.
Pear’s technology is primed to serve as the backbone on running.com by providing the Finish Line unit’s customers with training incentives and loyalty programs related to workouts, according to Allison.
The sensors on the device, which is worn on the wrist or chest, receive data, including information on heart rate and speed, and are transmitted to the cloud, where they’re analyzed to improve workout performance in real time.
Content
About 70% of the content on the app is free. Paid content is developed by fitness experts, including celebrity trainer Michelle Lovitt; Los Angeles Marathon head coach Andrew Kastor; Kastor’s wife, Deena, an Olympian, world champion and marathon record holder; and OC locals Noelle Kozak, Matt Fitzgerald and Nancy Halterman.
The experts, who use a sound studio at Pear’s headquarters on Michelson Drive to coach consumers during workouts, receive about 70% of subscriptions, which range from 99 cents to $25.
The company will test a pure subscription model next month for about $30 per year with no extra cost for content, Allison said.
The company has amassed a digital library of more than 1,000 workouts and support videos ranging from a few minutes to more than an hour in a host of exercises, including paddleboarding, meditation and yoga.
Hitching up with a growing retailer is a key development for Pear as it aims for profitability and more mobile users.
Finish Line posted a sales record of $1.67 billion in the 12 months through March, up 15.7% from the prior fiscal year. The Running Specialty Group, part of the company’s growth initiative, accounted for about $50.2 million of that, up 123%. The unit acquired 15 locations and opened seven stores in that period. It plans to operate as many as 75 outlets this year and 200 by the end of 2015, according to Allison.
Amassing downloads is the name of the game in the app world.
Those efforts got a recent boost with the new health app embedded in Apple Inc.’s latest operating system and preloaded on the new iPhone models. The app gathers information, such as caloric intake and fitness activity, from other synced apps, including Pear’s, and consolidates the data in one tidy location.
Pear’s app, which will also join the portfolio of apps for the Cupertino-based company’s anticipated Apple Watch, has nearly doubled downloads to about 1,000 per day since the health app launch this month.
The company’s efforts to increase downloads and diversify revenue also includes developing custom workout apps for sports franchises, companies and events. Clients include the Minnesota Wild hockey club, the U.S. Ski Team, the Ragnar Relay Series, and Warrior Dash, the world’s largest obstacle race series.
Pear, launched in 2011, has estimated revenue in the low, single-digit millions. It employs about 15 in Irvine and Solana Beach.
International expansion plans are under way through a recent deal with home and gym equipment maker BH Fitness. Another project in the works centers on localizing workout content for a large company in Dubai.
A partnership earlier this year with Irvine-based Vizio Inc. also bears watching as the U.S. sales leader in soundbars and smart TVs tests the emerging wearable technology market. The Business Journal in May reported that Vizio invested about $1 million in the company, believed to be its first strategic investment.
Pear has raised about $9 million to date.
All Pear deals, according to Allison, are geared “to build an audience, serve users, and get access to audiences.”