Eliud Kipchoge: Big Win for Marathon Legend as His Co-Founded Venture Raises Ksh530 Million

French start-up Kotcha, co-founded by marathon legend Eliud Kipchoge, has raised $4.1 million (Ksh530 million) to expand its artificial intelligence-powered run coaching platform, aiming to make elite-level training accessible to all runners.

As the fitness industry increasingly embraces AI, and with a global running boom showing no signs of slowing, a new wave of digital coaching tools is emerging. Kotcha positions itself at the forefront of this movement, offering a comprehensive training system inspired by one of the world's greatest distance runners.

"Running is a team sport," Kipchoge, the only athlete to have broken the two-hour marathon barrier, told Athlete Tech News. "Without my coaches and team-mates, I would never have pushed human limits. With Kotcha, we wanted to share not just the training structure, but the full support system that made it possible."

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The demand for structured training is surging, with major events like the London Marathon receiving a record 1.1 million entries for its 2026 race—double the number from 2024. This influx of participants, many of whom are first-time marathoners, is driving more runners toward AI-driven platforms like Kotcha and its competitors.

The platform was developed through a collaboration between Kipchoge, his renowned NN Running Team, and tech entrepreneurs who spent time at his Kaptagat training camp in Kenya to fully integrate his running philosophy into the app's core.

"We didn’t want another training plan generator," explained co-founder Ben Dupont. "Magazines once offered generic plans, apps later digitized them with basic personalization. Kotcha is the next generation of training experience: an AI-powered app you can talk to, recreating the relationship between an athlete and his coaching team."

To stand out in a growing market, Kotcha provides users with a team of four distinct AI coaches: a head coach, a nutritionist, a data analyst, and a personal trainer. All are trained on the proven methods of the NN Running Team, offering a holistic and adaptable approach to training.

A key feature is the platform's ability to adjust schedules in real time. For instance, if a user has only 30 minutes for a workout instead of the planned hour, the AI coach will modify that day's session and recalibrate future workouts to ensure the runner stays on track to meet their goals.

"AI often lacks context and falls short of runners’ expectations," Dupont added. "We’re building Kotcha to understand each runner’s goals, training load and patterns, so guidance feels like it comes from a coach who truly knows you."