Endomondo Sports Tracker, the fitness app that turns the mobile phone into a full-fledged personal trainer and training partner, announced today that it has raised $2.3 million in funding from SEED Capital. The company also reached the milestone of five million downloads of its fitness app that uses the motivational factors of fun and positive social peer pressure to help users improve their fitness and health.

Endomondo will apply the funding towards increasing staff needs, especially on the development team; expanding its presence in the U.S. by adding an office in the San Francisco Bay area; and creating scalable revenue channels to secure profitability by year end 2012.

Endomondo's mission is to make fitness more fun with social and community factors that work to inspire and motivate everyone. Users can send messages with peptalks as if they were there in person to cheer friends on during workouts and competitions. They can also follow and challenge friends, compete against each other's workouts and share results.

We believe Endomondo is in a unique position to lead the mobile fitness tracking market based on among others their growing and active user base and the superior rating of their app,” says Lars Andersen, General partner, SEED Capital. “Since our initial investment in Endomondo the team has performed beyond our expectations and we are thrilled to be a part of realizing their significant growth potential – both in the US and on a global scale.

"People do not change their lifestyles just because their doctor tells them to exercise more or eat better," said Mette Lykke, co-founder, Endomondo. "It's not that people don't know exercising is good for them, it's just that they lack the motivation. We don't believe that aggregating people's health data is gonna do the trick alone. People will change behavior when they are motivated because something caught their interest or when faced with positive social peer pressure. When users compare themselves to their peers, especially close connections like friends and family, then the fun and social factor works for fitness and they get motivated."

Endomondo data confirms the social factor. Endomondo users with 10 friends or more are three times more active than users flying solo within the Endomondo community. When people compete with small groups of friends in the tens of thousands of challenges created by Endomondo users, it's the fun kicking in.