Cult.fit forays into hardware, acquires fitness equipment startup Tread

Company to set up fitness equipment vertical, sell smart workout bikes in India market

Making a foray into the fitness hardware segment, health and wellness startup cult.fit has acquired Tread, a Bengaluru-based connected fitness start-up, for an undisclosed amount. 

With the acquisition of Tread, the company would launch a suite of smart fitness hardware products, beginning with smart bikes in the India market. These smart bikes would be sold on the Curefit platform and offline stores in the next two to three months.  

Tata Digital, a 100 per cent subsidiary of Tata Sons, had earlier this week announced an investment of up to $75 million in the Bengaluru-based company with its cofounder & CEO Mukesh Bansal joining the President. Bansal will also continue to head and run cult.fit.

“The equipment market is quite large and there might be other players that will help us expedite that approach of building the hardware-at-home segment. So, that's an area that we will continue looking at,” said Shamik Sharma, Head of Digital Health, cult.fit. On a mission to become the country's largest fitness network, cult.fit is also in talks to acquire content-based workout platforms such as yoga and meditation platforms.

The company is expecting that at least a million households in India in the next 5 years will make a $1,000 investment in creating a home equipment-based workout ecosystem, which makes it a $1 billion market. The company is targeting this market with the Tread acquisition, a first in this space. 

Explaining about Tread's model, Sharma said: “These are interactive bikes and as you pedal, you will be working out with others who are pedalling on the same route at the same time. The instructor will be able to see your data and metrics and will be interacting with you to keep you motivated.”

Apart from Tread, cult.fit, earlier known as CureFit, has made seven acquisitions in the past including several fitness chains and California-based Onyx, a fitness company that is building the world's smartest digital training experience.

With gyms and fitness centres shut because of the pandemic, cult.fit witnessed a setback in the offline space but is hoping for a recovery in the second half of the year. “Given the fact that people are trying to make up for lost time, we expect that offline experience oriented businesses will bounce back very strongly in the second part of the year,” said Sharma.

The six-year-old company will continue investing in the offline space, either by building its own gyms and fitness centres or by making acquisitions there as well. It had earlier this year acquired Fitternity, the largest fitness facilities aggregator in the country. With Fitternity on board, cult.fit members can access any traditional gym in the aggregator’s ecosystem. It’s live fitness classes which were rolled out as the pandelic hit last year have seen paid usebase reach 100,000 in a couple of months.

“By the second half of this year, when our offline business comes back, we will have not just one leg to stand on, but now several business units that are all firing,” said Sharma.