On Running: a shoe that wears its proof, and a champion who paid to join

On was founded in Zurich in January 2010 by Olivier Bernhard, a former professional triathlete and duathlete, together with David Allemann and Caspar Coppetti. The idea began with Bernhard cutting up a garden hose and gluing the pieces under his running shoes. It became CloudTec, a sole made of hollow pods that compress when the foot lands. In November 2019 Roger Federer bought a stake in the company for a sum that was never disclosed and that he called substantial. On said he would work on product development, marketing and fan experiences, and the first shoe he helped develop, The Roger, arrived in 2020.

In September 2021 On listed on the New York Stock Exchange, priced above its target range and valued at about 11 billion dollars after its first day of trading. Net sales passed two billion Swiss francs for the first time in 2024 and reached about 3 billion in 2025, up 30%, according to the results the company published in March 2026. A Swiss late entrant built a premium position in a market long led by Nike, Adidas, Asics and Brooks.

The claim sits on the outside of the sole

For decades running shoes were sold on promises nobody could see: cushioning, energy return, foam chemistry described in a laboratory and taken on trust in the shop. CloudTec put the promise where the eye falls. The pods are visible from across a street, and anyone who notices them knows which brand it is and roughly what it claims to do for a runner.

In the books this is the family of product proof, the one where the product proves itself. It is also what makes a late entrant hard to ignore. A shoe whose difference is internal has to buy attention to explain it; a shoe whose difference is in its silhouette gets explained on every foot that wears it, by the wearer, for free.

Naming the feeling

On built its language around a single image. The company describes the sensation as running on clouds, and the products carry the word in their names, from the original Cloud to the Cloudmonster. That is category design in its quieter form: a frame (a different feel underfoot) that the market can repeat in one phrase, and a vocabulary the brand occupies so thoroughly that a competitor using the same word would sound like an imitator.

The frame also kept On out of the specification war. When rivals compete on grams and millimetres, every launch can be measured against the last one from someone else. A sensation with a name is harder to benchmark, and the brand that named it holds the reference.

Why an investor reads differently from an ambassador

Sport has trained buyers to discount endorsements, because everyone knows the athlete on the poster has been paid. Federer’s arrival worked another way. The reporting in 2019 described a shareholding, with his own capital in the company and a role in the products. The books rank proofs in four families, and the strongest is behavioral proof: a costly signal, with real interests at stake. A champion who puts money into a shoe company is making a bet the public can read without any advertising copy.

The fit mattered as much as the fame. On has always stressed its Swiss origin and its engineering, and Federer is the best known Swiss athlete of his era, with a public image built on precision and composure. The investment attached his values to an identity On already claimed, so it read as part of the brand from the first day.

What the cloud has to keep proving

Growth now takes On well beyond the running track, into tennis, apparel, hiking and everyday wear, with Asia-Pacific sales almost doubling in 2025. Each step away from running puts weight on the original proof. A pod that makes sense under a marathon runner has to keep meaning something under someone walking to the office, or the silhouette becomes a fashion signal and the brand competes on taste, where giants have deeper pockets.

The lesson for any challenger is about where the proof lives. On’s claim was built into the object, and its most famous backer had paid to be there: two proofs that cost the brand no airtime. If you are entering a crowded market and need to decide which of your differences the customer can actually see, here is what we do.