ASICS bought an app and ended up owning the race

A shoe company buys a tracker

On 12 February 2016 ASICS Corporation agreed to acquire FitnessKeeper, Inc., the Boston company behind the Runkeeper app. The price was not disclosed. Runkeeper had launched in 2008 and its user base was reported at the time at between 40 and 45 million.^1,2 ASICS' corporate history records it as the acquisition of a wholly owned subsidiary, "the operator of Runkeeper, a global fitness tracking app".³

Jason Jacobs, who founded Runkeeper, set out the argument at the time: "It seems clear that the fitness brands of the future will not just make physical products, but will be embedded in the consumer journey in ways that will help keep people motivated and maximize their enjoyment of sport."¹ He also reassured users that "from the end-user standpoint, not much will change".²

The app is still shipping a decade later as ASICS Runkeeper, in twelve languages, operated by an entity now named ASICS Runner App, Inc.⁴ The acquired name was neither absorbed into the parent brand nor withdrawn.

The second purchase changed the shape of the first

The more consequential move came three years later. On 30 October 2019 ASICS Digital formed a Canadian subsidiary to acquire the assets of Fast North Corp. Inc., trading as Race Roster, a race registration platform based in London, Ontario.⁵ The stated purpose was to serve runners, race directors and the running community at once, connecting race management, brand sponsorship and race-day experience, and linking training plans through Runkeeper and membership through OneASICS.⁵

Alex Vander Hoeven, then CEO of Race Roster, named the mechanism plainly: "The idea of integrating an athletic brand with race registration solves many of the challenges faced by race directors."⁵ Dan Smith, then President of ASICS Digital, framed it as digital footprint and community.⁵

An app records what a runner did. A registration platform sits at the point where a runner enters an event, which means an entry fee, a name and an address, a start line and a date. It is a different position in the same activity.

Race Roster was also the point at which the purchases stopped being about an app. Its assets were a platform used by race directors, which means the customer was an event organiser rather than a runner.⁵

Four continents of sign-up forms

ASICS has since bought registration platforms repeatedly. It acquired njuko SAS in November 2022, described as Europe's leading race registration platform, extending coverage across Japan, North America, Australia, New Zealand and Europe.⁶ Further acquisitions followed in Thailand and Spain, and on 10 February 2026 the company announced the acquisition of GetMeRegistered and a second, undisclosed United States platform.⁷

The company files all of it under a phrase from its own strategy: "Expanding the Running Ecosystem", a stated priority of its Mid-Term Plan 2026, intended to "enhance brand experience value by providing race-centered digital and personalized services".⁷

The acquisitions came with their own logic from the sellers' side. Alex Vander Hoeven, by then CEO of ASICS Runner App, Inc., explained the njuko purchase in market terms: "Europe is an important market for ASICS, and the njuko platform has proven to be the technology with the best fit for this market."⁶ In each region the company has bought the established platform rather than built one.

What the layer is worth

The numbers ASICS publishes for its membership programme describe the return. OneASICS had 9.45 million members at the end of 2023 and 17.64 million at the end of 2024, 19.3 million by 31 March 2025 and 23.13 million by the fourth quarter of 2025, against a stated target of 30 million by 2026.^8,9 ASICS also reports that 10.75 million people have registered for races through its services.⁸

Mitsuyuki Tominaga, ASICS' Chief Operating Officer, wrote in the 2024 report that with "9.45 million OneASICS members globally as of December 31, 2023 and 19.3 million as of March 31, 2025, we believe that we are well on track to reach our goal of 30 million by 2026".⁸

What it means for the brand

ASICS describes OneASICS as "a digital membership platform providing personalized experiences based on unified customer data".¹⁰ The company that makes the shoe now also runs the registration, the training plan and the membership card.

None of those three contacts requires a purchase, and ASICS counts all of them: 23.13 million members and 10.75 million race registrations, against a shoe business that meets the same customer when the shoes wear out. The app bought in February 2016 was the first piece of that layer, and at the time it was a tracker.