Fitness startup Fitternity looking to raise $12-15 million by January

Fitness startup Fitternity, which claims to be the largest platform for wellness equipment and services in the country, is planning to raise $12-15 million (around Rs 90-112 crore) from overseas inves

Fitness startup Fitternity, which claims to be the largest platform for wellness equipment and services in the country, is planning to raise USD 12-15 million (around Rs 90-112 crore) from overseas investors by next January, to fund its expansion.

Fitternity claims to be the largest fitness platform and marketplace with over 6 lakh monthly active users across a network of 12,000 gyms, studios, fitness centres, hotels, and swimming pool facilities among others, which will go over 20,000 by March.

Co-founded by Neha Motwani and Jayam Vora -- chief executive and chief operating officer respectively -- in 2014, Fitternity follows a unique business model combining discovery, marketplace, pay-per-use and subscription model called OnePass that enables users to access multiple fitness activities and outlets through one membership that comes for Rs 999 a month.

It enables bookings across 12,000 fitness centres and facilities covering over 17 categories of fitness services and caters to over 10 cities now, which will go to over 20 by March amongst others.

The company has been operating across Mumbai, Delhi-NCR, Bengaluru, Pune, and Hyderabad and just has opened in Ahmedabad, Chennai, Jaipur, Kolkata and Chandigarh. It plans to enter Kochi, Lucknow and eight more cities by March, when its partners will cross 20,000, says Vora.

We were close to striking a funding a deal with a few foreign investors in March but the pandemic scuppered it. Now we are working towards raising something like USD12-15 million by January. Thankfully many foreign investors have significant interest in our business model, Vora told PTI on Friday.

He said the company is backed by domestic private equity players like Sixth Sense Ventures and Exfinity Venture Partners of Mohandas Pai, apart from angel investors Akshay Chudasma of Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas, and Rohit Kapoor of Oyo along with half a dozen others. They have collectively pumped Rs 40 crore into the startup.

Vora said the money to be raised will go into funding expansion, as given the pandemic they will follow a blend of physical and digital and the online subscription model OnePass is the way forward. Its other online services include interactive online sessions, video-on- demand and personal training wherever possible, he said.

Admitting that his business has been badly hit due to the lockdowns -- down 75 per cent from the average monthly revenue run-rate of Rs 10 crore pre-Covid -- he said going forward, he expects digital playing a bigger role in revenue generation.

On profitability, he said if the present public interest sustained in fitness, they hope to report first profit over the next 12 months.

Going forward, as gyms and fitness centres reopen from next week, Vora expects an increasing trend for users wanting to access physical infrastructure, while continuing to have an option of virtual fitness offerings.

His optimism comes from rising corporate demand that has gone up manifold since the lockdownswhen they added over 75 corporates up from under 20 pre-lockdowns.

Currently, we working with marquee companies like Accenture, Adobe, Amazon, American Express, EY, Indigo Airlines, JP Morgan, Tata Starbucks, and WeWork among more than 100 large companies, he said.