If you’ve ever participated in or organized a large-scale athletic event, chances are you’ve felt the frustration of navigating cumbersome technology woven into the experience. Clunky registration, lack-luster communication, and inadequate pre and post-event tooling can leave you wanting more — and not in a good way.
Sometimes registering for an athletic event is more challenging than participating in the event itself. Nobody wants that. Zack Isaacs and Taylor Peliska, the co-founders of Movemint, want it least of all. That’s precisely why they’ve set out to solve this painful problem, and we at Underscore VC are proud to share that we’ve backed them to do just that.
Movemint, the modern athletic event management platform, today announced that they’ve raised a pre-Seed round of funding from Underscore VC, Fitt Capital, and prominent angel investors in the athletics industry.
Signing Up For an Event Should be Easier Than Completing It
Event organizers of local 5Ks and ultra-marathons alike share a common goal: Create a wonderful experience for their participants, driving increased registrations, donations, and over-all enthusiasm in their community.
Here’s the rub: The legacy organizer platforms meant to augment their events — and the laborious planning process around them — are in many cases detracting from them. Registration is full of friction for organizers and athletes alike, often leading to confusion or unnecessary extra steps. Payments and payouts are slow. Participant performance data is delayed, inaccurate, or missing. The list goes on.
Enter Movemint! Movemint provides athletic event organizers, timers, and athletes with everything they need for a seamless and delightful sporting event experience. Beautiful and customizable event web pages educate and elicit excitement, while frictionless registration and payment flows result in sold-out races. Instant, no-code integrations with Strava allow for advanced course mapping and athlete tracking. And powerful email marketing tools keep organizers and athletes connected.
The market opportunity for Movemint is significant. With over 70,000 endurance events and millions of registrations per year in the US alone, not to mention billions of dollars in global spend around events, there is a clear opening for a modern and connected platform to transform the industry, and the Movemint team is uniquely qualified to capitalize on the opportunity.
Founder-Market-Fit
Movemint was founded by Zack Isaacs and Taylor Peliska, both of whom bring a wealth of industry experience, expertise, and athletic prowess to the table. Having participated in over 100 running and cycling events, Zack and Taylor are woven into the communities they are building for.
Zack, a former engineering leader at Strava, played a pivotal role in building partnerships and features that made Strava a leader in connected fitness. Taylor, with his background in design and brand leadership at various startups, has what it takes to evolve the status quo and ship modern product at break-neck startup speeds. They complement each other perfectly, and their clear “founder-market-fit” is attracting talent to the team in the form of full-time employees, partners, and advisors.
Off to the Races – Pun Intended
The Movemint team has shipped the most powerful API in the endurance sports industry, and launched a first-of-its-kind segment-based virtual event product. The company’s traction is visible in its early customer base, organizers like Tracksmith, Boston Road Runners, and the Headlands 27k Golden Trail World Series.
And like all great endurance athletes, they’re closely tracking their stats. Since launch, the Movemint platform has supported over 100 events in six countries, and logged 325K activities and 10K routes from Movemint athletes. These milestones highlight the market demand for Movemint’s solutions and the credibility of the team behind it.
Empowering Enderance Event Organizers and Participants
With the pre-Seed funding from Underscore VC and others, Movemint is bolstering their team with engineering and partnership talent to further expand their capabilities and impact. Most recently, Julia Jaschke joined the team as a Founding Software Engineer. Jaschke worked alongside Isaacs at Strava, where she led engineering efforts on routes, messaging, challenges, the feed, and AI.
Left to Right: Brian Devaney, Julia Jaschke, Taylor Peliska, and Zack Isaacs.
If you’re an event organizer looking to streamline your operations and attract more participants, Movemint is the solution you’ve been waiting for. Reach out to them to learn more about how they can transform your event management experience. And if you’re an athlete or participant, sign up with Movemint to discover and register for exciting events that match your interests.
