Accel, South Park Commons, Singapore-based investment company Temasek Holdings Ltd, a few individuals, and Curefit’s cofounder Mukesh Bansal also participated in the fundraising according to regulatory filings sourced from business intelligence platform Tofler. Zomato infused $100 million, as part of its broader strategy to invest $1 billion in young firms. Bansal, who previously founded online fashion retailer Myntra, invested $5 million.
Curefit’s valuation now stands at about $1.25 billion, up from $800 million in March 2020.
In June, Tata Digital Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary of the Tata Group,
entered into a memorandum of understanding to invest $75 million in the company. As part of the deal, Bansal, also the chief executive of the Bengaluru-based startup, joined Tata Digital as president.
Curefit was founded in 2016 by Bansal and Ankit Nagori, a senior Flipkart executive who operates Curefoods, a cloud kitchen startup. ET reported in November that
Curefoods was set to raise $30 million, which could even go up to $75 million. According to the regulatory filings, Curefoods is raising the capital at a pre-money valuation of $123 million.
Curefit Healthcare operates several subsidiaries under an umbrella entity to offer a gamut of fitness and health services. It owns almost 74% of Sugar.Fit, a diabetes management and reversal platform, which was slated to raise $10 million in a seed round led by Curefit in September. The company has expanded to offer online and offline fitness classes, doctor consultations, lab tests, and fitness gear.
In May 2020, Curefit—which is backed by venture capital funds Accel, Kalaari Capital and Chiratae Ventures—retrenched almost 10% of its staff (around 800 people) and enforced pay cuts across levels as its gyms remained shut due to the lockdowns in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. In July last year, Curefit again furloughed another 500 employees, in addition to exiting from small cities and ending plans to expand into foreign markets like the United Arab Emirates. The company also tried shifting its fitness and gym business online with a digital-first approach through streaming sessions.
Though it resumed physical operations late last year, the Covid-19 second wave forced it to shut offline gyms.
Meanwhile, Bansal and Nagori also undertook a significant restructuring of the firm last year. As part of it, Curefit had said its cloud kitchen business will be run as an independent entity, outside of the group. Nagori is now running this business as Curefoods.
Curefit, also counts Tata Group’s Chairman Emeritus Ratan Tata as an early investor.
Curefit is also the third big startup investment, after
BigBasket and
1mg, by the salt-to-software conglomerate as it looks to build its digital play against the likes of Amazon India, Reliance Industries and Walmart-owned Flipkart.
