Pale Fire Capital, a private equity firm headquartered in Prague, Czech Republic, has acquired a major stake in VirtualTraining, the Czech company behind the ROUVY indoor cycling and running software platform.
Pale Fire Capital (PFC) is positioned to become the majority shareholder in ROUVY and is expected to close the deal by the end of September.
According to a release from ROUVY, the platform… ‘is currently evaluated at tens of millions of US dollars. The new investment will fuel its ambition to be the #1 global mobile application for virtual cycling and running, surpassing the two-million mark for the community of active users within the next five years.’
“Since the beginning, our motivation has been driven by the prospect of providing athletes with a realistic cycling adventure at home,” explained VirtualTraining (ROUVY) CEO Petr Samek.
“We’ve come a long way, and we now facilitate this experience through a proprietary technology called ‘augmented routes’. We are confident that our product offers a convincing experience and great entertainment, and we want to make the benefits available to a greater number of both advanced and occasional cyclists, triathletes and runners around the world.
“To do that, we’ve joined forces with PFC. We believe that, together, with the investment group’s experienced professionals, we will build a strong global business that will bring together the indoor and outdoor worlds and make sports attractive to more people of various ages and backgrounds.”
Dušan Šenkypl, founding partner of Pale Fire Capital, said “I discovered ROUVY as a user during the COVID-19 lockdown. I found out that it was a Czech venture only after virtually cycling hundreds of kilometres through the Alps and the Italian landscape.
“Petr Samek and his associates are doing a great job that puts their product on par with the best solutions available in the global market. The ambition to be second to none in the worldwide context and to create a highly entertaining and rewarding product has brought us together and has ultimately resulted in our close partnership.
“Our other partners at PFC are sports fans too, which is why we’re very happy to provide support for the further development of ROUVY.”
The investors and developers have very ambitious plans for ROUVY… They intend to redraw the popularity rankings of cycling applications, currently dominated by Zwift, the number one online platform based in the United States.
ROUVY reports that its highest numbers of users are in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, France and Spain.
ROUVY users cycled over 58 million kilometres last year, and nearly 49 million kilometres in the first half of 2021. Nonetheless, this year’s target is much more ambitious – ‘no less than 150 million kilometres.’
For the past two years, ROUVY has been a partner to IRONMAN, as well as the Tour de Suisse series of stage races and to Digital Swiss 5, a World Tour pro digital-only series of races.
Samek also points out ROUVY’s partnership with Spain’s La Vuelta and its expansion plans in road cycling. “We are in the process of negotiating a long-term partnership with the best-known road stage cycling race in the world, and we’re preparing a unique digital concept for La Vuelta.
“I promise that fans will be thrilled about the new options and features, and that professional racers will be much closer to their fans and followers than ever before.”
Following the investment, the ROUVY team will be reinforced with the addition of ‘a host of interesting roles in Vimperk and Prague, as well as in Brno, where the company’s founders, the brothers Jiří and Petr Samek, are planning to open a new facility for their employees and associates.’
As its ambitions are growing, ROUVY is in the market for experienced, motivated developers, B2C marketing and product specialists and UI/UX design experts, ‘regardless of where they come from’.
ROUVY’s CTO Jiří Samek said “One of the most important tasks is to make ROUVY simpler and more fun for newcomers. Apart from simulation, we work hard on fine-tuning onboarding, gamification and the career advance system.
All of that places high demands on the product team, developers, and the marketing staff. To say that we have a lot on our plate would be an understatement.”
www.rouvy.com
www.palefirecapital.com
