Facebook acquires fitness tracking app Moves

Moves will remain as a standalone app, but the team will be working on existing Facebook services

(Updated to reflect comment from Facebook)

I know that Facebook is looking to branch out, but is it now going to be moving into the exercise space?

The company has purchased exercise app Moves, it was announced in a blog post on Thursday. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed.

Moves is run by ProtoGeo Oy, a Helsinki-based company founded in January 2012. The app is an all-day activity diary for smartphones.

It automatically records any walking, cycling, and running that the user does. They are able to view the distance, duration, steps, and calories burned for each of their activitities. The app allows users to also add  gym training and over 60 other activities to track.

The data can also be connected and used by 40 other apps, including OptimizeMe, Lifesum, Momento, GridDiary, MovesNote and Move Export.

Launched in January 2013, Moves has been downloaded 4 million times to date for iPhone and Android phones.

It parent company ProtoGeo raised $1.6 million in seed funding from Lifeline Venture, PROfounders, AJP Holding, Juha Lindfors, Jyri Engeström and Tekes.

The Moves app will continue to operate independently, the company revealed, "and there are no plans to change that or commingle data with Facebook." Still, they make it sound as though the team will be working on Facebook's existing services, though what exactly those would be were not specified.

"Now, we’re joining Facebook’s talented team to work on building and improving their products and services with a shared mission of supporting simple, efficient tools for more than a billion people."

VatorNews reached out to Facebook to find out what the Moves team will be working on at the company. A spokesperson confirmed that the company's three founders, Sampo Karjalainen, Aapo Kyrola and Zsolt Szasz, will be moving to work Facebook's MPK and our London offices. The spokesperson could not say what they would be working on, however. 

That Moves is staying as a stand alone app fits in with Facebook's recent goal of creating an apps suite that goes beyond the core Facebook app.

Following the release of the company's earnings reports in January, Mark Zuckerberg got on a conference call and said that Facebook would be continuing its push on mobile in the upcoming year with more standalone apps, a la Instagram.

That vision was reinforced by two moves made by the company since then: first, it's $19 billion purchase of WhatsApp in February, followed by its decision to force Facebook users to download a separate app in order to use its instant messenger service via mobile. 

Moves is Facebook's fifth acquisition this year following the purchase of Indian startup Little Eye Labs, which provides performance analysis and monitoring tools for Android developers, and then the acquisition of social sharing service Branch Media, both in January.

In February, Facebook bought mobile messaging service WhatsApp, a nd in March it picked up immersive virtual reality technology company Oculus for $2 billion.

(Image source: moves-app.com)