Cure.fit — A holistic approach to fitness.
By: Kumar Louhit
Tags: Cultfit, Fitness, Analysis, Entrepreneurship, Startups

Cure.fit — A holistic approach to fitness.

These quarantine days showed me the status updates of my friends regarding their achievements as top performers for fitness routines. Initially, I ignored it, but then when I realized even after 2 months, they are still happily sharing their achievements, and that’s when it hit me that some of my friends have become a part of a fitness ecosystem known as the Cure.fit community!

Cure.fit is the brainchild of well-known names of the Indian startup ecosystem — Mukesh Bansal (founder of Myntra) and Ankit Nagori (Ex-CBO of Flipkart). Founded in 2016 at a small building at Koramangala, Bangalore, Cure.fit had an amazing growth trajectory that is still continuing.

In 2016, Cure.fit was able to generate $15 million in funding from Kalaari, ID, and Accel. As of April 2020, Cure.fit was valued at a whopping $732 million.

Where it begins…

Mr. Mukesh Bansal being a fitness enthusiast came across the Bangalore based startup Cult which had a unique value proposition of a no-machine workout model. Upon seeing that he instantly identified the potential it had, to scale up globally. Mr. Bansal saw the vision of expanding the idea of verticals like a healthy diet, medication, etc,

Journey…

In 2016, Cure.fit got the majority of Cult shares by investing $3 million. They have also acquired the online food tech company Kristy Kitchen, Opinio — a B2B logistics startup and the fitness club The Tribe. By aggregating all the above platforms and adding new ventures, they introduced a horizontal business model via four verticals of Cure.fit

Cult.fit | Mind.fit | Eat.fit | Care.fit

It is a mix of Gym, food delivery, fitness studios, yoga centers, and health clinics. It is going after as many as 16 different “markets” all at once and thus needs to have $$ in cash reserves in the bank. All 4 verticals need very different strategies as a business.

By merging the essential healthy lifestyle needs like gym, meditation, healthy diet, and medicines Cure.fit has created a subscription-based hybrid (both offline and online) brand.

It does look like a movement, with its slick marketing and multiple celebrity endorsements like Hrithik Roshan’s, who is a perfect role model for the fitness industry. A home run from the brand’s marketing team

Cure.Fit is going after the “$100 Bn health & fitness market“, which is indeed large. All the verticles that Cure.Fit is targetting is fragmented and disorganized.

We can see the Cure.Fit has a very traditional approach to solving this market. The verticals in themselves are large and fragmented which requires a separate focus on each sector. The same will hold true for Cure.Fit, and it has taken a largely inorganic approach to enter each of these verticals.

Cult.fit offers physical wellness programs like Zumba, weight lifting, yoga, etc, at their wellness centers. Care.fit provide access to trained health care professionals and online consultation. Eat.fit provides curated diet options for health-conscious individuals. And Mind.fit offers mental wellness programs. They have also ventured into a new vertical Whole.fit, a grocery delivery platform, and clothing and accessories brand CULTSPORT.

Recently they have acquired Rejoov, a cold-pressed juice brand. These acquisitions are proof that Cure.fit is on a journey to conquer the world of fitness.

Being tech-driven is one of the major peculiarities of Cure.fit. They have created dashboards that will integrate the information of different verticals like Eat.fit and Cult.fit to give better insights to customers. The dashboard is capable of being a coach to you and offers timely advice and recommendations on your daily routines. This paves the way for better customer satisfaction and loyalty to the offerings. Also, they have used technology in various aspects like logistics and operations management. Being tech-driven has helped them to stay alive in operations even during the COVID-19 crisis.

Future.

Cure.fit was also forced to join the bandwagon of COVID-19 impact as their business model chain of Cult.fit centers were extremely affected. Cure.fit had to lay off employees during this crisis. But going digital is the future of the fitness industry and Cure.fit being the tech-driven company it is, it’s going to be a fairly easy road for them to adapt to digital offerings. Also by doing so, they can not only reduce the fixed cost associated with Cult.fit but also eliminate the geographical constraint of the current model.

Cure.Fit says it wants to become a one-stop healthcare platform. It might just as well is a healthcare data company. All this marketing, and these various verticals, is to acquire highly lucrative and valuable customer health data. This data can help healthcare service providers to target the right customers with the right products and improve the experience like Google or Facebook.

It is indeed a question of whether that the horizontal model they following with different verticals may get affected by over focussing on digital offerings or not.

Cult.fit was their primary medium for customer acquisitions for other verticals. So, a strategy which will retain both online and offline (hybrid) model seems to be the way out for them to the path of further success.