Life is too short to waste time thinking about joining a new gym or picking the right fitness routine. A healthy lifestyle is a constant effort which shouldn’t become a monotonous routine or a bland diet. And it doesn’t have to be, thanks to Cure.fit. Mukesh Bansal and Ankit Nagori started Cure.fit to bring all aspects of fitness – exercising, diet, mental health and medical/lifestyle care – under one roof.
Cure.fit, recently rebranded as Cult.fit, is a Bengaluru-based health-tech start-up offering digital and offline experiences across fitness, nutrition, and mental well-being, to build a holistic ecosystem of health, fitness, and healthcare.
“At Cult.fit, we strive to keep you fit & healthy through a range of holistic offerings that include fitness and yoga, healthy meals, mental wellbeing, and primary care. Now anyone can now stay healthy from the safety of their homes with just a single app that helps you to #BeBetterEveryDay,” says the Cure.fit website.
Backed by Singapore state investor Temasek Holdings, Cure.fit managed to grab a huge customer base, thanks to state-of-the-art group fitness sessions and celebrity endorsements, delivers services at centres in more than 130 locations across India.
What made Cure.fit work in Bangalore?
With Cure.fit, a workout feels like a cakewalk which includes a range of trainer-led, group workout classes with four distinct services Eat.fit, Cult.fit, Mind.fit and Care.fit, it has revolutionised the fitness industry with its mind-blowing and practical business plans.
Eat.fit, the food vertical was set up in 2017, with the acquisition of Kristy’s Kitchen (health food start-up) and Opinio (hyperlocal food delivery start-up), offers a subscription-based healthy food delivery service. Over the years, the company has launched its brand name for packaged health foods and labelled it Whole.fit, selling food items such as cold-pressed juices, beaten grains, healthy crisps, and protein water contributing more than 30% of Eat.fit’s profit.
Given the popularity of yoga in India, Cure.fit did not hesitate to set up its Yoga and mental health vertical, Mind.fit by acquiring the yoga studio ‘1000yoga’ in 2017, catering to anyone from the age group of 18 to 80 years.
In addition to its other fitness and wellness offerings, In 2018, Cure.fit set up its first healthcare clinic and branded it as Care.fit in Bengaluru, which looks at personalised healthcare services, including consultation and diagnostics, by leveraging big data, telemedicine and analytics to deliver preventative healthcare solutions.
The Cure.fit app also sells accessories like sportswear, shoes and other fitness accessories under the ‘Cultgear’ brand.
The company has introduced a new feature called the ‘Energy Meter’, which enables virtual tracking of workout movements using the customer’s camera. Following the session, the leader-board is published, and each user gets feedback. Clients can also publish their rankings within the community, and they even receive badges.
Leveraging a combination of online and offline channels, Cure.fit’s business model has borne fruit thanks to a creative mix of mentoring, engagement, and delivery services they have built so far.
Challenges
Fitness is a big industry in India, being able to thrive in this arena is a bit more adventurous than we could imagine, with lots of competitors around.
The idea of Cure.fit was born when the founders felt India doesn’t have an established healthcare system and most people are without healthcare insurance and a tech-based integrated start-up can serve people better. This start-up is bullish on its physical centres across India.
Among all the challenges they have faced initially, pandemic imposed standstill of business and growth was impacted. With ambiguity on normalcy and reopening of gyms across the country during the first phase of the pandemic, necessary measures to ensure business continuity was vital.
Bansal and Nagori have adapted to the situation by launching a host of online services, with live sessions by Cult trainers and celebrity trainers through its Cult.live and Mind.live offerings, online personal training and a library of DIY content. Providing its customers, the convenient and cost-effective work out module online.
Among the many interesting modifications, gamification of live classes through energy trackers and class rankings established their business during and after the pandemic drove economic distress, growing nearly five times, led its expansion to the United States, where it started offering online fitness and therapy sessions.
Growth Story
With the acquisition of 14 organizations so far, the most recent being Gold’s Gym on Feb 14, 2022, Cure.fit has become the biggest one-stop destination for fitness and wellbeing. Last year, Cure.fit has acquired Mumbai-based fitness aggregator Fitternity for an undisclosed amount after it acquired US-Based fitness tech start-up Onyx in January. It has raised a total of $674.6M in funding over 12 rounds, latest funding was raised on Nov 10, 2021, from a Series F round.
Cure.fit turned into a unicorn start-up, valued at $1.56 bn, on November 10, 2021, thus becoming the 36th unicorn in 2021 and 77th unicorn overall in India, after a cross-selling deal with Zomato, where the fitness brand acquired the fitness arm of the food tech giant, Fitso for $50 mn and infused another $50 mn. Fitness is the company’s highest-earning vertical, followed by food services (34.5%), Healthcare and other related services (3.06%).
Cure.fit, which attracted investments from major conglomerates like the Tata group, currently has more than 100 outlets across three cities of Bangalore, Gurgaon/Delhi and Hyderabad, with an ever-growing customer base. With the healthcare market expected to increase three-fold to ?8.6 trillion by 2022, Cure.fit is eyeing global expansion.
