We’ve had apps to explore your cities like GetYourGuide, we had apps to track your runs like RunKeeper. Now a startup, Komoot plans to address the great outdoors with guides for cycling and hiking based not just on crowds-sourced material but by also pulling partner APIs and running an algorithm over those data sets around trails, landscapes, elevation and points of interest. Till now Komoot has concentrated on its home German market, but the startup is now launching its iPhone [iTunes link] and Android app (Playstore] in the UK and further European countries with its mobile outdoor guide which also features voice navigation (Ireland, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovenia and Croatia as well as in Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, Luxemburg and the Netherlands).
Komoot has raised €1m from a German public fund and claims to be cash flow positive after two years. It claims to already be Germany’s most popular outdoor app with nearly two million downloads.
Markus Hallermann, founder of komoot says people use the app to plan cycling and hiking tours and customise them to their individual preferences. The app then calculates the difficulty of planned routes and summarises information like whether the trail is gravel or asphalt or features busy roads.
The app pulls data from OpenStreetMap, NASA, Wikipedia, and more, as well as user data from machine learning. Voice navigation – which they built themselves, no mean feat – and offline maps can be unlocked region by region. Competitors apps include Navigon, Skobbler and Naviki which provide cycling routes, but the quality of tours and information is less comprehensive and they don’t provide voice navigation.
The startup is based on a Freemium model where the first region is free. Further single regions can be unlocked for £2.49 (€ 3.59). A complete set containing all regions throughout Europe is available for £ 23.99 (€ 29.99).
The idea for komoot was born in 2009 during a joint tour in the Alps by the three founders Jonas Spengler
(31), Markus Hallermann (30) and Tobias Hallermann (28).