Digital Health Partners invests in cycle training data analysis startup Lyduck

Pedaling Towards Success: DHP Invests in Cycle Training Data Analysis Startup 'Lyduck

Digital Healthcare Partners (DHP), an investor specializing in digital healthcare startups, invested in Ryduck, a fitness startup that analyzes and predicts cycle-centered aerobic exercise data with artificial intelligence and provides systematic training programs. The size of the investment is undisclosed.

Cycling is a sport with a strong fan base worldwide, and it is a market with great needs for record competition, training, and condition management among club members. Ryduck provides easy and convenient scientific training record analysis, management and training programs that professional players have received to cycle maniacs (so-called 'Jadeok').

Based on the usual training data without separate equipment or experiments, it accurately measures indicators that indicate skills among cycling enthusiasts such as FTP (Functional Threshold Power), FatMax (maximum fat burning exercise intensity), and VO2Max. In addition, it provides a function to improve competition performance by providing a systematic training program and pace adjustment guide for each course of various competitions that require cycling for several hours. Through this, Rideok is gaining popularity among domestic cycling enthusiasts within a short period of time.

Ryduck is currently in beta service as an add-on for its website and Strava, a global sports SNS with more than 100 million users, and is receiving love calls not only in Korea but also in global markets such as the US and Europe. In particular, since the characteristics of the cycle mania market do not differ greatly from country to country, Rideok plans to actively target the global market from the beginning of the business. Starting with entering the North American market within the year 2023, the goal is to secure more than 2.5 million users worldwide within the next five years.

Even before the establishment of the corporation in 2022, Ryduk opened a beta version of the service and secured users by generating word of mouth based on the recommendation code. Currently, it still only serves a limited number of users, around 10,000, of which more than 80% remain active users.

Based on this investment attraction, Ryduck plans to expand its service targets and accelerate its global expansion. In addition, it plans to provide training programs to professional players in the future, beyond the current market of club enthusiasts. Furthermore, based on its aerobic exercise data analysis capabilities, it plans to expand to running and mountaineering related services in the long term.

Park Sang-hyeok, CEO of Rideok, is a serial entrepreneur. He founded a college student timetable service called 'Rookie' when he was a college student, and later started and operated an online marketing company. After discovering the possibility in the one-person service developed based on the interests of the cycling maniac himself, he established Ryduk in 2022 and started commercialization in earnest. Major members such as CFO Won Jong-seok, who served as CEO of NCsoft's affiliates, are composed of cycling enthusiasts.

This is Rideok's second investment after attracting seed investment from Korea Investment Accelerator and Main Street Ventures in December. CEO Park Sang-hyeok expressed his aspirations, saying, "The paradigm of exercise culture is rapidly changing in the direction of analyzing and planning exercise through data obtained from various hardware, and Ryduck wants to become the standard in this market."

DHP CEO Choi Yoon-seop said, “Ryduk provides a very sharp service in the clear area of the cycle 'deokhu' market, and it is highly appreciated that it is generating a great response from users." I will do my best to support you,” he said.

Published on : 27th July, 2023