Despite not being a particularly fitness-obsessed person, I’ve fallen for the fitness tracking trend. My main fitness tracker is a Jawbone UP24, but I also keep Moves iOS app turned on and occasionally use RunKeeper.
The hassle of keeping on top of all my fitness scores is why I was interested in trying out Nudge, which is currently raising a $1.3 million Series A round. The iOS and Android app serves as a dashboard, allowing you to keep your data from Fitbit, Strava, RunKeeper, Up by Jawbone, Map My Fitness, and Sleep As Android in one place. It also gives you places to track what you eat, how much water you drink, hours of sleep, and energy level.
Nudge then combines all these numbers into one score that it calls the Nudge Factor, which you can use to compete with other friends who have the app, no matter what wearables or fitness apps they use. Users who want additional motivation (or who don’t have friends who use Nudge) can join clubs in the app around topics like weight loss and stress management.
One of Nudge’s current drawbacks (and one that it plans to fix in upcoming updates) is that it doesn’t currently sync with passive and active tracking apps at the same time, which means I can’t see scores for both my Jawbone UP24 and Moves.
Nudge co-founder Mac Gambill explains that “Nudge can integrate with passive and active trackers (I use Fitbit and Runkeeper), but Moves is different as it actually classifies different types of activities. We will be launching an update this fall which will better handle data sync and include additional integrations.”
Nudge originated as a “corporate wellness product” at the beginning of 2013 before pivoting to “become like the Klout for healthy living,” its co-founders Gambill and Phil Beene told TechCrunch in an email.
“We realized that as the adoption for health tracking apps grew, several opportunities would arise. First, there would be a growing need to bring together lifestyle data into a silo from various apps,” Beene and Gambill said.
“Second, with so many options available, consumers would benefit from having someone play the role of curator in the market to help them pick the right trackers for their lifestyle. And third, that it would become increasingly difficult to input and compare data from different tracking apps or wearables on a common scale to see how they compare.”
In addition to metrics like a 30-day summary of their fitness activities, Nudge also gives users recommendations on what they can do to improve their score.
“I think the act of trying to live healthy can be intimidating to most people, especially when it comes to something like counting calories, and Nudge’s metric can help those trying to get a better sense of their overall progress as it stands in conjunction with other tracking apps,” say Beene and Gambill.
To be sure, there are other fitness score aggregators on the market, including EveryMove, which is available on iOS and Android.
One of the ways that Nudge wants to differentiate is by eventually making aggregated user data available to healthcare and fitness professionals.
“There are certainly some great platforms out there that are able to put more data in one place, illustrating that a user took a walk with app X, then ate something with app Y, but Nudge has an alternative objective. We are focused on trying to index the world’s data to better allow for objective comparison of users across platforms and populations, which can help provide a very different level of feedback, not only to users, but also to people interested in population health,” says Beene and Gambill.
Nudge’s founders don’t want to disclose user metrics yet, but say that the app has a user retention rate of 70 percent, and active users in 120 countries around the world, who tend to be “predominantly 35 and younger and male.”
In addition to helping users keep on top of their different fitness trackers and compare scores with friends, Nudge’s founders say it can also help creators of new fitness tracking wearables and tools gain exposure.
“The market has exploded over the past 18 months, creating an ecosystem of mostly fragmented data. While platform integration is becoming more common in the market, the Nudge team has tried to position themselves as the curator of the market to help ensure that people find the right app for their needs, increasing the chances of user retention,” says Nudge’s co-founders.
“For example, if someone loves cycling, we can introduce him or her to Strava. If someone wants to track all of their movements throughout the day, but aren’t ready to spring for a pricey wearable tracker, then Nudge is there to introduce them to Moves.”
Nudge plans to monetize by launching a platform for fitness and healthcare professionals in the coming months that will help them work with clients and patients. Beene and Gambill say the next Nudge update will include security and privacy measures to make the app fully HIPAA-compliant.
In addition to its platform for professionals, Nudge will also rollout an in-app store for Nudge that will allow users to purchase wearables that have already been integrated into the app.
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