Two of the greatest runners on the planet just joined forces — and it has nothing to do with a race.
Kilian Jornet, the legendary ultra-trail runner and mountaineer, has officially signed on as an athlete founder of AI-powered running app Kotcha, joining marathon world record holder Eliud Kipchoge, who already holds the same title at the company.
The announcement dropped on Jornet’s Instagram this week, and the running world immediately took notice.
But here’s what makes this more than just another celebrity brand deal — and why the word “founder” is sparking a serious conversation.
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Why Jornet Says He Got Involved
Jornet didn’t frame his involvement as a typical sponsorship play.
In his Instagram post, he pointed to decades of personal experience — the training, the racing, the failures — as the foundation for why he wanted to help build something like this.
If you want something simple that actually works, this is one of the most effective tools I’ve used to build strength, conditioning, and endurance without needing a full gym setup.
- Full-body training with one weight using swings, squats, and presses
- Solid cast iron build that feels stable and lasts for years
- Comfortable grip that makes high-rep workouts easier to handle
After many years of training, racing, making mistakes, learning from my body and trying to understand what actually makes a runner improve over time, I wanted to help build something that could share that knowledge in a useful way.
He was also upfront about what the app isn’t meant to be.
The goal is not to give people ‘Kilian’s training plan.’ Good training is about understanding your own body, finding your own rhythm, and building consistency over time, more than copying a rigid plan.
That distinction matters. A lot of fitness apps live and die by the promise of replicating elite performance. Jornet is pushing back against that model entirely.
What Kotcha Actually Does
Kotcha is an AI-powered training app designed to adapt to the individual runner — their fitness level, personal goals, and the realities of everyday life.
The company’s stated mission is bold: “to make society physically, mentally, and socially healthier through the power of running.” It deliberately frames running as a team sport rather than a solitary pursuit.
Three founders built the product from the ground up. Ben, a product expert and multi-marathoner, identified a gap in what existing apps were offering. Marketer Dim and builder Mac rounded out the founding team.
The app positions itself as a direct rejection of rigid, fixed training blocks. No cookie-cutter 12-week plans. Instead, it promises programming that bends to fit the runner — not the other way around.
If you want something simple that actually works, this is one of the most effective tools I’ve used to build strength, conditioning, and endurance without needing a full gym setup.
- Full-body training with one weight using swings, squats, and presses
- Solid cast iron build that feels stable and lasts for years
- Comfortable grip that makes high-rep workouts easier to handle
Jornet’s Trail Expertise Is Now Baked In
The Kotcha team traveled to Mallorca — where Jornet is based and trains — to work directly with him on translating his methods into something the app could generate at scale.
Trail-specific plans now draw on his approach to terrain reading and mountain strategy, areas where Jornet is genuinely without peer.
This involvement follows his extraordinary States of Elevation project last fall — a 31-day linkup of all 72 U.S. fourteeners that cemented his status as one of the most daring endurance athletes alive.
How Kipchoge Came First — And What Happened Next
Kotcha’s relationship with Kipchoge started in February 2025, when the founding team traveled to his training camp in Kaptagat, Kenya.
They sat down with Kipchoge and his longtime coach Patrick Sang — and in a moment that speaks volumes about the values the company wants to project — they planted trees together at the camp to mark the start of the partnership.
Two months later, following the London Marathon, the team reconnected with Kipchoge and Sang to review early designs. The app officially launched in the fall of 2025, timed to coincide with Kipchoge’s first-ever New York City Marathon.
If you want something simple that actually works, this is one of the most effective tools I’ve used to build strength, conditioning, and endurance without needing a full gym setup.
- Full-body training with one weight using swings, squats, and presses
- Solid cast iron build that feels stable and lasts for years
- Comfortable grip that makes high-rep workouts easier to handle
Jornet joined the fold this past spring, making the duo official. And in his announcement, he spoke directly to what this unlikely pairing means to him.
Working on this alongside Eliud feels right. We come from very different parts of running, but we share values both in life and training.
The “Founder” Title Is Raising Questions
Not everyone is buying the framing without scrutiny.
Calling world-famous athletes “founders” of a startup immediately raises eyebrows — because at their level, Kipchoge and Jornet are almost certainly not sitting in weekly product standups or making infrastructure decisions.
The setup closely resembles arrangements where high-profile athletes take equity stakes in early-stage companies in exchange for input, access, and the kind of endorsement a cash-strapped startup could never afford through traditional channels.
As Marathon Handbook noted in earlier coverage of Kotcha’s launch, young companies rarely have the budget to sign athletes at this tier outright. Ground-floor equity becomes the currency — and a “founder” title carries credibility that a standard sponsorship deal simply doesn’t.
That doesn’t make the partnership meaningless. Jornet’s methods are reportedly embedded in the app’s trail programming, and Kipchoge’s involvement shaped early design choices. The contribution appears real. The label, however, is doing some heavy lifting.
If you want something simple that actually works, this is one of the most effective tools I’ve used to build strength, conditioning, and endurance without needing a full gym setup.
- Full-body training with one weight using swings, squats, and presses
- Solid cast iron build that feels stable and lasts for years
- Comfortable grip that makes high-rep workouts easier to handle
What Jornet Says His Role Actually Is
In his post, Jornet described his contribution as helping runners develop “more awareness, structure and long-term perspective” — and was careful to stress that the app should never override a runner’s own instincts.
He wrote that it “should not replace intuition or connection with the body.”
Whether users experience that philosophy in practice — or just get a well-branded AI training plan — is something only time, and a lot of early-morning runs, will reveal.
