Paris-based startup Kotcha, co-founded with marathon legend Eliud Kipchoge and the NN Operating Group, has raised €3.5 million in pre-seed funding to make skilled operating teaching accessible to runners worldwide. The spherical was led by Racine2, operated by Serena and makesense, with participation from True World, Motier Ventures and different traders from the patron, well being and sports activities sectors.

Kotcha makes use of AI to recreate the athlete and coach relationship, delivering adaptive, personalised steerage that evolves with every runner’s efficiency. The app goals to bridge the hole between generic coaching apps, which usually value round €20 per thirty days, and human coaches, who can value as much as €100 per thirty days. With demand for operating races rising quickly, the London Marathon alone acquired over 1.1 million entries for 2026, twice as many as in 2024, Kotcha presents a scalable answer to fulfill the rising curiosity whereas sustaining the non-public help of actual teaching.

“Operating is a workforce sport,” mentioned Eliud Kipchoge, the one particular person to finish a marathon in underneath two hours. “With out my coaches and teammates, I might by no means have pushed human limits. With Kotcha, we needed to share not simply the coaching construction, however the full help system that made it attainable.”

Kipchoge and the NN Operating Group have been immediately concerned within the app’s improvement. “Sharing our data has all the time been our mission. Creating an app was the subsequent step, however we wanted the correct companions,” mentioned Marleen Vink-Rennings, Advertising and marketing Director at NN Operating Group.

The founding workforce consists of Eliud Kipchoge, Ben Dupont (CEO), Michel-André Chirita (CTO), Dimitri Dor (CMO) and the NN Operating Group. The workforce combines elite operating experience with startup expertise, having labored collectively at Kipchoge’s Kaptagat coaching camp to embed his philosophy into the platform.

“We didn’t need one other coaching plan generator,” mentioned Ben Dupont. “Magazines as soon as provided generic plans, and apps later digitised them with fundamental personalisation. Kotcha is the subsequent era of coaching expertise, an AI-powered app you may speak to, recreating the connection between an athlete and their teaching workforce. This teaching workforce is step one in bringing our imaginative and prescient to life, that operating is definitely a workforce sport.”

Validated with over 300 runners, Kotcha delivers a dependable and adaptive expertise for athletes of all ranges. Not like most operating apps that lock customers into inflexible 12 or 16-week plans, Kotcha recreates the texture of an actual teaching workforce with 4 AI coaches: Head Coach, Nutritionist, Information Analyst and Private Coach, all skilled on NN Operating Group strategies.

“AI usually lacks context and falls in need of runners’ expectations,” added Dupont. “We’re constructing Kotcha to grasp every runner’s targets, coaching load and patterns, so steerage feels prefer it comes from a coach who really is aware of you.”

Key options embrace weekly personalised coaching plans that alter based mostly on efficiency and suggestions, pre- and post-run steerage, and round the clock solutions to coaching, diet and restoration questions. Within the coming weeks, Kotcha may also permit real-time plan changes, routinely modifying classes when customers have restricted time as a result of work or private commitments.

“Our goal is to not substitute human coaches, however to make teaching extra accessible and to assist extra folks obtain their operating targets,” mentioned Marleen Vink-Rennings.

“That is simply the beginning line,” mentioned Dupont. “We raised this spherical to deliver our imaginative and prescient to life, enhancing bodily, psychological and social well-being via operating.”

Margaux Bussière, Principal at Racine2, added, “Few actions form each physique and thoughts like operating. Kotcha brings that have into a brand new period, connecting know-how, empathy and precision in a method that feels genuinely human. It’s the youngest firm we’ve ever backed, and one we selected to help from day one as a result of its ambition resonates deeply with our values.”

Kotcha is on the market from 23 October on the App Retailer worldwide in French and English, designed for runners coaching for races from 10k to marathon distances.