SportSetter has raised a $1 million seed round to expand beyond its home turf of Finland and New York into the UK market, as well as to develop an Android app.

North European startup seed investor Reaktor Fund led the round with participation from a number of funds, angels, and institutions based in the U.S., Singapore, EU and UAE.

The company started back in 2013 as a subscription play, offering users what co-founder Niko Karstikko calls a “picnic basket” of local activities. Afterwards, it pivoted to its current model that involves offering free fitness trials and activity discounts as a way to drum up interest from users, and convert fitness testers into paying customers.

“Our typical product would be 10x single pass and let’s say a one month or a three month bundle. And the[re’s] almost always… an exclusivity element to it, such as you don’t pay the surprise fee for the magnet card,” Karstikko said. “You will never ever have to pay anything else but exactly what you see. And pretty much all of our activities are up to 30 per cent off… There’s no joining fee or what have you.”

SportSetter current has “tens of thousands” of users, who have collectively generated over 65,000 trial visits to fitness activities.SportSetter currently has “tens of thousands” of users, who have collectively generated over 65,000 trial visits to fitness activities. Also, it has more than 300 fitness provider partners populating its apps with activities — including more than 150 in New York.

Activity recommendations are personalized for each users by asking him/her a set of questions as well as looking at his/her Facebook profile, presuming Facebook login is used. The team is also looking to build in more algorithmic recommendations based on usage of the app.

Right now the company is experiencing a rather impressive conversion rate of 24 percent on all trials to returning customers.

[Via: TechCrunch]