cure.fit
Be Better Everyday
Modern, busy lifestyles are often at odds with the health aspirations of people who want to achieve their fitness goals through good food and regular exercise. Convenience and limited time to work out often seem to be hurdles that not many of us can overcome. Time seems to be an important factor in whether or not the working class can cook proper meals, exercise regularly, or even have some peace of mind.
However, the Indian healthcare, wellness and fitness sector is experiencing a huge wave of change. More and more people are trying to adopt the ‘fitness siesta’ lifestyle of western countries, with the goal to accommodate a healthy workout and a proper meal in their busy schedules. The country’s young and appearance-conscious population is fueling this fitness boom. This is also a result of the expansion and consolidation of the presence and availability of such brands and services in a lot of Indian cities, which in turn, is a result of the increasing investment from private players in this sector.
IIT graduates, Mukesh Bansal and Ankit Nagori, took advantage of this shifting landscape and founded a healthcare, wellness and fitness tech startup called cure.fit. Their primary vision is to make being healthy super-easy for people, by providing access to healthy food, physical fitness, mental wellbeing and primary healthcare through a single, holistic platform.
Smart Techies
Founded in 2016 by Nagori and Bansal, the Bangalore-based startup cure.fit, is an innovative concept which offers experiences to its users across the spectrum of fitness, nutrition, mental well-being, and primary healthcare through its 4 products, i.e. cult.fit, eat.fit, mind.fit and care.fit. The proposition that distinguishes cure.fit from their competitors, is that they work on the philosophy of engagement, coaching, and delivery through both, their online and offline platforms. All this was possible through structurally complex, yet uncompromised customer service.
Ankit Nagori was the Chief Business Officer at Flipkart, while Mukesh Bansal is the founder of the leading fashion and lifestyle e-commerce brand in India, Myntra (which was eventually acquired by Flipkart). After the duo left Flipkart, they pondered over multiple ideas, over months. Finally, they realised that health and fitness is a bucket where India had zero technological penetration. Bansal himself, being a fitness enthusiast, was really keen on tapping into this sector in the Indian market. The one central aim behind cure.fit was to jumpstart a fitness movement in India and in the process, make staying fit and healthy the new ‘cool’.
The Flagship Verticals
cult.fit
It is the largest among the four verticals of cure.fit. The primary philosophy of this vertical is to make fitness fun and easy for its users by putting their best trainers at work. One can enjoy either group workouts at their centres or a tailor-made workout at home, with the help of DIY workout plans on their app. It has an unconventional training facility where the workouts ranging from boxing to yoga, help you enhance your health while still keeping it fun. Mukesh Bansal and Ankit Nagori stated that they aim to open 500 cult.fit centres across India, by the time 2020 is through!
As a part of cult.fit, they also introduced workout gear that caters to the needs of everyone, from common folks to pro athletes.
mind.fit:
As the name suggests, this is a one-stop solution for keeping your mind healthy and fit. It aims to provide a seamless integration between physical and mental health. The vertical aims to reduce stress, improve an individual’s focus, and provide positive energy, leading to a better quality of life.
cure.fit also launched its first international yoga studio in Dubai, integrating yoga and meditation, along with scientific and psychological insights.
eat.fit:
This is a nutrition and healthy-food-delivery service that brings you tasty meals which are extremely healthy, wholesome, and holistic. One can choose from a variety of cuisines, and each dish is filled with quality ingredients. By December 2019, cure.fit aims to open over 50 eat.fit centres.
care.fit:
It deals with providing primary healthcare to individuals with the help of doctor consultations at their centres and video conferencing. It claims to offer best-in-class healthcare and also has an in-house pharmacy and diagnostics facility. At present, care.fit is only operational in Bengaluru, but plans to expand its centres pan India soon.
The biggest ace up care.fit’s sleeve is their health insurance service, which will be up and running by 2020.
Funding and Additions
cure.fit has had a smooth journey in terms of investors and funding as compared to other health startups in the country. In fact, they are one of the most well-funded early-stage startups in India, across sectors! Having started out in April 2016, the company is now valued over $500 Million.
The company seems to be growing at a strong rate of 400% and Bansal and Nagori aim to keep this growth rate steady till mid-2020. cure.fit has raised a healthy $235 Million in their Series D funding. Some of the most reputed names who have given them this funding include IDG Ventures, Kalaari Capital, Accel Growth, Anand Piramal Trust, Pratithi Investment Trust, etc. Backed by such heavyweights, the company claims to be one of the largest fitness chains in the country.
cure.fit is not only aiming to increase its presence in the country, but is also using these funds to acquire other startups and SMBs that align with its business model. Bansal and Nagori think that instead of starting everything from scratch, it’s better to expand through acquisitions. This has helped the company to rapidly scale up.
A Steep Climb
Apart from the funding, cure.fit’s journey hasn’t been all smooth sail. The most difficult hurdle to cross was expansion out of their home ground, Bengaluru. For the first two years of their launch, they were only present in Bengaluru. According to Nagori, every city has its own demographics, needs, wants, and catchments. After expansion, around 5% of their centres didn’t take off as well because the offerings given to people, did not end up satisfying their needs. To overcome this problem, they held activation events to gather crowds and introduce their offerings to the audience. The company is aimed at expanding its geographical presence to 50 Indian cities with 800 centres (including all their verticals) by 2020.
Another challenge that cure.fit had to overcome was to hire highly-skilled professional trainers, chefs and other supporting staff. To address this, the company opened up their own training academy in Bengaluru, where aspiring professionals can get proper training and join their 2,200-strong workforce.
The newly-launched care.fit vertical was a third hurdle that the company had to cross, as primary healthcare is quite a difficult market to crack, especially in India. However, cure.fit has been able to overcome this too. The main advantage was that, cure.fit is a well-known brand that has gained the trust of millions, across the country. Secondly, the numerous consultation programmes that the brand provides are being able to bring in the clients.
Managing multiple verticals under one name hasn’t been a cake walk for cure.fit. Each vertical has to be managed separately, using different technologies.
For instance, eat.fit demands prediction of orders, menu programming, and food delivery management and cult.fit requires management of around 130+ retail centres across the country! These lessons have helped the founders of the company learn a lot about managing their growth, balancing profitability, and managing consistency across all their verticals.
What’s Next?
cure.fit offers its products to customers both, online and offline, so that they can choose what they like, based on their desired benefits and likings. The innovation culture of cure.fit is what is helping their customers lead a healthy lifestyle, every day. The company also plans to invest in more startups that are related to their verticals.
To open 500 cult.fit centres across 15 cities in the country by 2020, with a lot more personalisation is also one of the biggest aims. The company has already penetrated in the global market by opening their mind.fit centre in Dubai. This has not only expanded their exposure in the global market, but will also help strengthen their position in India when in the inevitable event of their global competitors coming over to the Indian market.
cure.fit is also working on developing wearable technology and a wide range of smart health devices so that their customers can continuously track their health and fitness, and also their growth and improvement. cure.fit has added distinctive value to its customers in a very innovative way. Powered by growth management, data-driven decisions, engagement with their users on digital media, cure.fit is all set to pioneer a growing fitness movement in India!
