How On Shoes Conquered, One Cloud at a Time

You know those shoes with the bubbly, hollow-looking soles that suddenly seemed to be on every start-up founder, runner and “run club girlie” on Instagram? That’s On.

This is the story of how a tiny Swiss brand went from a hacked-up garden hose prototype to a multi‑billion‑franc performance–lifestyle powerhouse that’s genuinely worrying Nike and Adidas.

From Zurich side project to global phenomenon

The story starts in Zurich in 2010, with former Ironman champion Olivier Bernhard and his friends David Allemann and Caspar Coppetti. Bernhard had become obsessed with a simple idea: could a shoe give soft landings and explosive take‑offs at the same time, make running feel like “running on clouds”.? Most running shoes then forced a choice between pillow‑soft and race‑stiff. His first prototypes were almost comically homespun – he literally cut up pieces of garden hose, glued them to soles, and ran in them to feel the difference. When those hacked‑together experiments started to feel good, the trio turned them into a company. Within months, their prototype won a major industry innovation prize at ISPO, and specialty running shops in Switzerland took notice.

Turning a feeling into a technology

From those hose segments came CloudTec®, the technology that defines On. If you flip an On shoe over, the sole is made of distinct hollow “clouds” rather than one solid block of foam. When the foot hits the ground, each cloud compresses not just downward but also slightly sideways, dispersing impact forces and adapting to how the runner lands. As the motion rolls forward, those same elements quickly firm up to create a stable platform for push‑off, helped by a stiff “Speedboard” running the length of the shoe. In engineering terms, it is about decoupling landing softness from take‑off stiffness. In human terms, it feels like floating in and springing out. And crucially, it looks unlike anything else: a sculpted, almost architectural sole that telegraphs innovation from across the street.

That visual signature turned out to be as important as the physics. Early on, On positioned itself less like a mud‑splattered, hardcore “for runners only” brand and more like a minimalist, design‑led label whose shoes just happened to be built for performance. Clean uppers, often in gentle neutrals, sat on top of those instantly recognizable clouds. The effect was a shoe that could go from tempo run to tech office to airport lounge without looking out of place. In a world where the post‑pandemic consumer wanted one pair that did everything, On’s design language was almost perfectly timed.

From Olympic gold to office corridors

The validation from elite sport came quickly. By 2012, Swiss triathlete Nicola Spirig was racing in On and won Olympic gold in the Cloudracer, giving the young brand a credibility boost that marketing budgets cannot easily buy. Regionally, growth was explosive, by 2019, On commanded about 40% of Switzerland’s performance running shoe market and 10% in Germany, while in the US – its largest single market – it held roughly 6.6% of the performance running category. Behind those shares was a much bigger global ambition: On shoes eventually reached thousands of retailers in more than 60 countries, worn by millions of runners worldwide.

Meanwhile, an interesting shift happened in how people used the shoes. They were bought for running, but quickly migrated to everyday life: worn with jeans in creative agencies, with tailored joggers in co‑working spaces, and with technical outerwear on city commutes. On unintentionally invented a new archetype: the performance commuter, someone who wanted to feel like an athlete without looking like they were always headed to a race.

The Federer effect

Then came the Federer effect. In 2019, after more than twenty years with Nike, Roger Federer did something unexpected. Instead of signing another classic endorsement deal, he took an 3% equity stake in On and joined as a kind of “co‑entrepreneur”. Together they developed “The Roger”, a line of tennis‑inspired sneakers that blended court heritage with CloudTec cushioning and crisp, versatile styling. When On went public on the New York Stock Exchange in 2021, shares surged, valuing the company at around $11 billion – a valuation that made Federer’s stake worth far more than his lifetime tournament earnings of about $131 million. Fast-forward to 2025: with On’s market cap nearing $15 billion (and at times higher), Federer’s holding is valued at over $375–500 million, helping push his net worth past the $1 billion mark. Beyond the numbers, his presence wrapped the brand in a halo of elegance and reliability; “Swiss precision” stopped being a slogan and started looking like a face.

Federer’s move also had a powerful signaling effect. It said that On was not just another endorsement logo on a crowded shoe wall, but a company good enough that one of the most successful athletes on earth wanted to own a piece of it. For consumers who might have been on the fence, that sort of quiet endorsement mattered.

A rocket of revenue

Behind the glamour, what really impresses analysts is the growth curve. On’s net sales climbed from a few hundred million Swiss francs at the end of the 2010s to well over two billion by the mid‑2020s, with double‑digit – often high double‑digit – percentage growth year after year. Crucially, this wasn’t just a revenue story; profitability followed. On’s global footwear market share grew from 0.07% in 2019 to 0.13% in 2020, 0.22% in 2021, and 0.34% by end-2022 – a roughly five-fold increase in just three years. By 2024–2025 estimates, it had reached around 2–3% of the athletic footwear market worldwide (while Nike and Adidas together hold ~58%), a growth trajectory so steep that executives at larger rivals now reference it directly on earnings calls. It’s still small in absolute terms, but the growth rate – not just the size – is what has everyone’s attention.

Riding the running boom and social media

So how did it manage to out‑pace so many rivals and unsettle giants without out‑spending them? Timing and positioning did a lot of the heavy lifting. On rose alongside a broader running resurgence, especially among Gen Z and younger millennials. Surveys show Gen Z leading the running boom. In 2025 race data, they accounted for 38% of 5K runners, 39% of 10K participants, 31% of half-marathoners, and 33% of full marathon finishers. Strava reports running clubs grew 3.5x in 2025 (nearly quadrupling total clubs to 1 million), with 55% of Gen Z citing social connections as their top reason for joining fitness groups. For this cohort, running is not just exercise but culture: TikTok and Instagram drive gear discovery, Strava screenshots and run-club photos are social currency (with 72% joining clubs to meet new people), and “runner” is as much aesthetic identity as athletic label.

On slotted into this world as the “it” shoe – technically credible, but also photogenic and instantly legible as a taste signal. The sculpted soles look great in mirror selfies and finish‑line photos. The minimalist uppers fit the clean‑girl, quiet‑luxury and tech‑bro aesthetics simultaneously. And as run clubs transformed from niche training groups into social hubs and dating pools, those clouds on your feet became a quick way to say: I take this seriously, but I’m not stuck in the old brands.

Filling shelves Nike left empty

Distribution strategy added another quiet advantage. While Nike was pulling back from many wholesale partners to push its own direct‑to‑consumer model, retailers suddenly had holes on their walls and floors. They needed brands that could deliver performance stories with lifestyle appeal. On walked in with both, quickly securing premium placements in running shops and upscale department stores. For retailers, the brand offered something that felt fresh but still technical; for On, it was a chance to leapfrog into visibility that would have been expensive to buy directly.

At the same time, the company invested heavily in its own high‑touch direct channels. It built a polished e‑commerce experience and opened flagship stores in cities like New York, London and Zurich, as well as key Asian locations. Stepping into an On store feels much closer to a design‑driven concept space than a crowded sports megastore: light, airy, and quietly Swiss. The strategy now is a balancing act: maintain strong wholesale relationships, especially with specialty running retailers, while steadily growing direct sales to own more of the customer relationship and brand storytelling.

Partnership with luxury brands

On also understood that in the 2020s, sport brands live or die on culture, not just performance charts. Its ongoing collaboration with luxury house Loewe is perhaps the clearest example. Starting around 2022, the two companies began releasing capsule collections that reimagined On silhouettes as high‑fashion objects. The soles stayed true to CloudTec and Speedboard engineering, but the uppers wore Loewe’s gradients, hand‑finished details and couture sensibility. The result was a sneaker that could walk a runway and a forest trail with equal confidence.

Later, the partnership evolved into models like the Cloudsolo, designed from scratch together and launched with premium materials and a more sculptural take on the cloud motif. These shoes sell in limited numbers at luxury price points, but their real value is symbolic. They signal that On can sit beside Loewe in a boutique without looking out of place. For consumers, that pushes the brand firmly into the performance‑luxury space, alongside names like Lululemon and Alo rather than only Asics and Brooks.

Add in ambassadors like Zendaya, who brings enormous cultural cachet as both actress and style icon, and On’s image tilts further toward cinematic. Campaigns become less about split times and more about mood, motion and identity.

Experiments in circularity and race‑day tech

Underneath the branding, experimentation continues. The Cyclon program, for example, offers fully recyclable running shoes under a subscription model: customers pay a monthly fee, send back worn pairs, and receive new ones while On recycles the old materials. It is a bold attempt to rethink ownership in footwear and to position the brand as a leader in circular design, even if it is still a small slice of overall sales.

For elite racing, On has pushed models like the Cloudboom and special editions designed for the Olympic cycle. One of these uses a robotically deposited filament upper that slashes the number of parts compared to a typical shoe, reducing waste and weight while aiming for a more “engineered” fit. These shoes are niche, but they matter because they keep On in the conversation whenever people talk about super shoes, plates and next‑gen foams.

How it really compares to Nike, Adidas and the rest

Compared with competitors, On remains a challenger. Nike leads the global athletic footwear market with ~18–28% share (footwear revenue ~$35B in 2024), while Nike + Adidas together hold ~40–50% of the category. Hoka and Brooks dominate US specialty running retail (~24% and 22–25% shares respectively), ahead of On at ~10% there. On’s edge lies in its premium hybrid positioning – CloudTec performance that pairs as naturally with a blazer as a singlet – capturing ~2–3% global athletic share by 2024–25.

It doesn’t need to beatNike; it only needs to own the growing “performance lifestyle” niche. In Europe’s specialty running channels, On has overtaken Adidas in key markets like Germany (~10% share), and in affluent US urban areas, its visibility rivals Hoka. The bigger prize is longevity: turning trend into habit.

The current chapter – and what’s at stake

The picture today is of a company in a delicate but powerful phase. Financially, it combines growth rates that many tech firms would envy with strong profitability and positive free cash flow. Culturally, it sits at the intersection of run clubs, creative industries and luxury collaborations. Strategically, it is still expanding its direct channels while pruning weaker wholesale relationships – a balancing act the rest of the industry is watching closely. There are risks, from possible tariffs on Vietnamese manufacturing to the challenge of staying innovative when competitors are flooding the market with their own foams and plates. CloudTec, for all its success, is also a narrow story; over‑reliance on that single visual and functional idea could become a constraint if tastes shift sharply.

For now, though, On remains one of the clearest examples of how to build a modern sports brand. Start with a simple, ownable promise – “run on clouds”. Encode it in a product that performs tangibly better for a lot of people. Wrap it in design that looks at home in both a boardroom and a lookbook. Add a legend like Federer as a partner, choose collaborators who open doors to fashion and culture, and ride a social media–driven running boom with discipline rather than hype. The result is a shoe that is no longer just something people run in, but something they run toward as a way of expressing who they are.