Tianfu Software Park: Codoon -- A Potential Magnate in China's Internet+Sports Sector

CHENGDU, China, Jan. 30, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Tianfu Software Park, one of the largest tech parks in China, selected a batch of excellent enterprises which grown up in the park, and visited their founders or CEOs. The face-to-face communication allowed them to learn more about the latest thoughts, analysis and outlooks of the enterprises about the internet industry. Their speech represent the real side of the Chinese Internet industry, bringing inspiration to people who hope to enter the Chinese Internet industry.

What is the combination of "Internet and Sports"? What kind of wonders will the collision between traditional sports industry and the internet bring? The 2016 Annual Report on China's Internet Sports Users provided us with an answer: The bonuses of 500 million sports population and 10-year policy support have given the sports industry unprecedented opportunities in the next decade.

As an outstanding enterprise that was born in Tianfu Software Park Business Incubator, located in Chengdu China, Codoon is the first of its kind in China to introduce wearable device "Codoon fitness tracker", the "Codoon" app and sports bracelet, altogether they have formed a product modality featuring bracelet plus app on the basis of internet social networking in 2009, when domestic sports health sector barely started.

"Users are the core value of the internet, while hardware often lags behind software in terms of the ability to attract users," said Shen Bo, Founder and CEO of Codoon, who has been engaged in the "internet+sports" sector for years. By practicing the separation of hardware and software and focusing exclusively on software and service, Codoon received RMB 60 million A-round financing and USD 30 million B-round financing in March and November 2014 respectively, which laid a foundation for the Company to become a sports industry magnate.

To add more fun, Codoon takes the lead among its international counterparts to introduce online marathons despite the regional and temporal restriction and initiated over 100 online marathons in 2016. Meanwhile, Codoon also developed a variety of events to cater for the needs of different user groups, such as "business start-up run, running girl and Codoon urban mini-marathon" and thus formed its own competition event brand. In addition, Codoon is now actively promoting its overseas version Runtopia, which seeks to apply the Company's domestic success in overseas markets and transform the tool-oriented structure that Runkeeper, Nike+Running and many other foreign sports apps feature.

As of the end of 2016, the number of Codoon users has been approaching 80 million, rendering the company a global leading sports social networking and sports big data platform.

According to Shen Bo, all sports can be turned into data, which allows huge development space for "internet+sports" sector and cross-sector development. The accurate big data analysis allows companies to analyze user's sports behavior, provide individualized tutoring and introduce sports equipment that are most suitable for each user. In addition, the cooperation with medical institutions and insurance organizations is also around the corner, which is a new future development trend.

In the end of May 2016, Codoon finished a USD 50 million C-round financing and won the title of "the Most Popular Sports and Health Application Platform of 2016" in "2016 China Mobile Internet Annual Top List Evaluation Activity" held by iiMedia Research Group in January 2017.

Today, Codoon has covered multiple sports areas, such as running, fast walking, cycling, mountain-climbing and skiing. According to Shen Bo, Codoon is to establish a "sports ecosystem for all people" that centers on comprehensive service to sports groups featuring "data, content, event operation and value-added service", which takes care of users' needs before, during and after the sports.

Shen Bo believes that internet will no doubt overturn traditional sports industry and Codoon's major goal is to "help everyone form sports habits sooner and change the way everyone exercise and live". He also added, "in the future, Chengdu will definitely welcome a USD one billion industry giant and Codoon is a potential contender which seeks to maintain its current industry front-runner status and make sports attractive to every individual."

SOURCE Chengdu Tianfu Software Park