Nestled in a lane in a posh suburb of southeast Bengaluru and surrounded by fast-food outlets and hospitals is a small bungalow that houses the office of health start-up CureFit. Inside, the workspace is decorated with drawings such as Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man and motivational quotes. One can find many teams busy working on improving the mental and physical health of customers through technology, diet and exercise.
“We want to have one million [customers] [engaged in] 15 activities a day by 2020. I think we can do that. We are right on that path,” said Ankit Nagori, co-founder of CureFit, in an interview.
He said the company planned to raise $75 million in debt financing in the next two years to expand across India. The firm, which operates in Bengaluru, Delhi and Gurugram, aims to set up about 500 centres for its services across the country. This year, it raised $10 million in debt from Axis Bank and HDFC Bank.
A former chief business officer at e-commerce giant Flipkart, Mr. Nagori, 32, founded the start-up in 2016 along with his colleague Mukesh Bansal who had sold his online fashion retail firm Myntra to Flipkart in a deal estimated at $370 million.
Mental health
The company differentiates itself by addressing preventive healthcare through a combination of engagement, coaching and delivery through online and offline channels.
For example, its vertical Cult.fit which focuses on physical strength and fitness, provides a non-conventional facility and a mix of exercises through group workouts without any mainstream gym equipment.
Another arm Mind.fit which concentrates on mental well being combines yoga, meditation and breathing exercises as well as psychology. The aim is to help reduce stress, improve focus and better sleep quality of the customers. CureFit also has a health food vertical Eat.fit that offers calorie counted balanced meals created by a panel of nutritionists and chefs. The model involves delivering these meals to offices and homes.
India’s healthcare market may see a more than threefold rise in value terms to reach $372 billion by 2022 from $110 billion as of 2016 thereby clocking a compounded annual growth rate of 22%, according to an Assocham-Rncos joint paper.
Artificial intelligence
The paper said this would be driven by factors such as growing incidence of lifestyle diseases and rising demand for affordable healthcare delivery systems.
These are the opportunities that companies such as CureFit as well as investors backing such ventures are eyeing. Till now, CureFit has raised $45 million in equity funding from venture capital firms Accel Partners, IDG Ventures, Kalaari Capital and UC-RNT Fund.
It is investing this money in branding and technology. This includes using artificial intelligence to track the progress made by the customers, nudge them to exercise and also recommend classes based on their body types.
In the last two years, the firm has been acquiring small, health-focused brands like Cult, The Tribe, Kristy’s Kitchen and a1000yoga. It said it has now got more than 40,000 paying customers who are using one or more services. It is now planning to unveil a fourth vertical, Care.fit, which would focus on primary healthcare.
The firm also plans to provide a telemedicine service for patients to consult doctors. An alumnus of IIT-Guwahati, Mr. Nagori said the digital offering is the true way to reach the masses. “That is what Paytm and WhatsApp have done.” he said.
CureFit is not the only firm betting on the country’s fitness and wellness market. For instance, Bengaluru-based 2mpower Health Management Services (GetActive) provides a unique employee wellness and engagement platform for enterprises such as Cisco, GE, IBM and Accenture.
It aims to improve the health of employees through gamification of various aspects of wellness and via competitions and peer-to-peer challenges.
Another young firm, HealthifyMe, which, in February raised $12 million including from Sistema Asia Fund and Silicon Valley-based Samsung NEXT, plans to use the funds to deepen its presence in India.
It would do this through offering health foods, diagnostics and insurance products beyond its digital nutrition and fitness services portfolio. The company also said that it planned to use the funds to further improve its artificial intelligence and data science capabilities.
