NEW YORK, Aug. 8 — Francisco Partners, the private-equity firm that has owned MyFitnessPal since acquiring it from Under Armour in 2020, has held early conversations with advisers about a sale of the calorie-tracking application, Reuters reported Friday, citing people familiar with the discussions. No bank has been formally mandated, no valuation has been set and no process has launched, according to the report, and the people cautioned that the firm may elect to hold the asset. Neither Francisco Partners nor MyFitnessPal would confirm the talks when contacted by Consumer Tech Wire.

For a category that spent a decade with a single default application at its center, the signal matters more than the transaction. MyFitnessPal is the most-downloaded calorie tracker in the United States and the reference point against which nearly every competitor positions itself. A sale process — even an exploratory one — puts the category’s anchor tenant in play at the same moment its newer, AI-first competitors are being bought rather than funded.

“You do not test the market on your largest consumer-health asset in a year when the growth story is intact,” said Dana Yoshimura, a managing director at the health-technology investment bank Coriolis Advisors, who was not involved in the discussions. “Sponsors test the market when they think the multiple is closer to its ceiling than its floor. Whether or not this trade happens, the fact that the conversation is being had tells you how the category’s owners are reading the next three years.”

What the six-year hold looks like

Francisco Partners bought MyFitnessPal for a reported $345 million in 2020, roughly a third of the $475 million Under Armour paid for it in 2015. The intervening period has been a subscription-conversion story rather than a growth story: the paid tier expanded, the free tier narrowed, and per-user revenue rose without a corresponding change in the underlying recognition or database technology.

That strategy accelerated this spring. In May, MyFitnessPal moved scan-a-meal photo logging, recipe import and per-meal macronutrient breakdown behind its premium subscription, a change that cost the application four-tenths of a star on the iOS App Store within 48 hours and drew a proposed class action in California. Consumer Tech Wire examined the broader pattern in an analysis of the end of the free-tier default.

Higher average revenue per user makes an asset easier to sell. It also makes the asset harder to grow, which is the tension a buyer would be underwriting.

The Cal AI purchase changes the read

The talks land after MyFitnessPal’s own move as an acquirer. Earlier this year the company bought Cal AI, the photo-first calorie-tracking application that raised a $50 million Series B led by Andreessen Horowitz in February at a reported $400 million post-money valuation. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

Read one way, that purchase is a defensive patch: MyFitnessPal’s own photo-recognition mode has never scored competitively in independent testing, and buying an AI-native product is faster than rebuilding one. Read another way, it is the standard pre-sale maneuver — bolt an AI story onto a mature subscription business and the equity story reads as a platform rather than a legacy app. Both readings can be true, and a buyer would have to price both.

Where consolidation is heading

The rest of the category has arranged itself around durable specialisms rather than scale: Cronometer in micronutrient depth, MacroFactor in adaptive coaching, Carb Manager in keto and low-carb, FatSecret in international reach, Lose It! in behavioral simplicity, with Noom and Yazio selling programs rather than logging.

What none of them has is the distribution MyFitnessPal accumulated before app-install economics got expensive. That is the asset actually on the table — and also the asset most exposed to a platform vendor bundling equivalent features into an operating system.

Questions readers are asking

Is MyFitnessPal being sold?

Not yet. Reuters reported that MyFitnessPal’s owner has held early, informal conversations with advisers about a possible sale. No banker has been formally hired, no price has been discussed publicly and no process has been launched. Exploratory talks of this kind frequently end without a transaction.

Who owns MyFitnessPal in 2026?

Francisco Partners, a technology-focused private-equity firm, has owned MyFitnessPal since 2020, when it acquired the application from Under Armour. Under Armour had owned it since 2015.

Did MyFitnessPal buy Cal AI?

Yes. MyFitnessPal acquired Cal AI, the AI photo-logging calorie app, earlier this year without disclosing terms. Cal AI had raised a $50 million Series B led by Andreessen Horowitz in February at a reported $400 million post-money valuation.

Would a sale change MyFitnessPal’s pricing?

Not directly or immediately. Ownership changes do not alter subscription terms on their own, and existing annual subscriptions run to their renewal dates. The indirect risk is that a new owner underwrites the deal on further subscription conversion — the same pressure that produced the May paywall expansion.

What happens to my MyFitnessPal data if the company is sold?

Logged food diaries transfer with the company in an acquisition, governed by the privacy policy in force at the time plus whatever notice that policy requires on a change of control. Users who want a copy of their own history should export it before any transaction closes rather than after; MyFitnessPal offers a data-export tool in account settings, and iOS users can also export nutrition data through Apple Health.

Helena Rosenberg-Vance reported from Washington.