Active Overwatch 054

Here’s your weekly roundup of news, trends, and stories in the health and fitness space. A list of what’s happening, new innovations, interesting finds, and more.

This week we’re covering:

• David Protein’s quick rise.
• BPN’s last man standing ultra.
• Strava’s newest acquisition.
• And more...

Hope you enjoy!

Recent Headlines

David Protein raises $75M and acquires food tech company Epogee. Less than 1 year old, David is on pace for over $100M in revenue. This acquisition gives them more control over the supply chain for EPG, an ingredient in David’s protein bars.

• David is playing the game perfectly. Every “expert” online (including me at times) say that consumers care about clean ingredients these days. And while that might be true to an extent, what most consumers really care about are low calories, high protein, and good taste. If you have that, they’re in. And then, while this Epogee deal certainly help costs and control, I think this could also be setting up a much bigger play for David. Many better-for-you dessert brands, making ice cream and chocolate bars, use EPG. And it’s worth watching David here. They don’t just want to own the bar aisle, they want to own your sweet tooth…

BPN hosted their G1M Last Man Standing Ultra. Featuring 132 racers running a 4.2 mile loop, every hour, until 1 person remained. Ending poetically, as the last 2 runners, Kim and Kendall ran 56 laps for 235+ miles and mother nature was the only thing that could take them out - resulting in a split victory.

• I quickly just want to give props to the BPN team, this event was absolutely incredible and took the fitness world by storm. So well done.
• Now my big takeaway. Backyard ultras aren’t new - but BPN made theirs feel different. Not because of the format, but because of how it was captured, who was in it, and how it spread. It was built for community and content at the same time. They were posting content throughout the race, live streaming, and included several big name influencers in the race - creating a flywheel of content that was everywhere on social. No big media outlets were covering it either, but it still caught fire. That’s because independent creators were telling the story in real time (like Tatum and I here). That’s the blueprint, and this is what the future of brand building and media actually looks like.

Strava acquires cycling training app, The Breakaway. Breakaway features personalized cycling training, innovative ride analysis, and achievement tracking tools. This is Strava’s second acquisition in recent months, as they also acquired the running app, Runna.

• These move by Strava are really smart and extremely calculated. They’ve always been the social layer of endurance sports - but now they want to be the intelligence layer too. With the acquisitions of Runna and Breakaway, it’s a shift from “log your workout” to “optimize your training”. And these acquisitions aren’t random. They’re strategic defensive moves against more specialized apps. Strava knows if they don’t evolve beyond social and stats, users will peel off to tools that give smarter guidance. So they’re absorbing that functionality to keep users in their ecosystem. Now the question is about integration. Can they turn these pieces into one clean, connected experience? We shall see.

Ōura unveils updates to activity and movement features. Featuring new active time trend view, new fitness metrics, import maximum heart rate data, and all day activity tracking.

• This update isn’t groundbreaking, but it’s another sign Ōura is pushing hard to be more than just a sleep tracker. With recent updates like metabolic tracking, glucose integration, and now better fitness metrics, it’s clear they’re trying to become the ring for all day health, not just overnight insights.

The longevity space continues to stay hot. As longevity and health optimization startup, Geviti, raises an $8.5M seed round. And Stride and Unity fitness partner to embed diagnostics into their premium fitness.

• The longevity space isn’t just hot - it’s growing in two directions at once. Startups like Geviti are building direct to consumer brands around diagnostics and health optimization, while companies like Stride and Unity are embedding diagnostics directly into your gym experience. One builds awareness, the other builds routine. Together, they’re turning longevity from an abstract science into something you can live with, train for, and track every single day

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