A fitness app created in Tauranga has built up a following of 30,000 users in the UK and US markets and just won a major award from the popular fitness app, Strava.
My Virtual Mission has received a top 25 honourable mention in the 2016 "Best powered by Strava" apps list, yet in New Zealand remains virtually unknown.
In a statement released today, My Virtual Mission director and founder Adam El-Agez said: "It's a bit puzzling, to be honest. We're taking the world by storm but in our own back yard hardly anyone knows us as a Kiwi brand.''
My Virtual Mission www.myvirtualmission.com is a goal-setting fitness app which enables individuals or groups to set up long distance "missions" between two points on a map and work towards completing the challenge with each run, ride, walk or swim that a person completes.
Users might swim the English Channel, run the length of New Zealand, or cycle along Route 66 - every kilometre that they exercise takes them closer to achieving their personal or team goal.
"We wanted to build an app that gives users a goal to work towards. Working out can be dull and boring but having something that challenges can also be encouraging. It's great to know we're helping people reach their health and fitness objectives through our technology".
With around 100,000 new users each month, Strava is among the most popular GPS fitness tracking apps for runners and cyclists in the world.
Announcing My Virtual Mission as one of its top 25 connections out of 13,800 other apps is a major boost for the grassroots Tauranga company.
The connection between the two platforms enables Strava users to automatically send their distances to their mission which eliminates the need to manually log distances.
My Virtual Mission also connects with other popular fitness apps such as Fitbit, Runkeeper and the range of Under Armour apps.