Fitpass, the all-access pass to gyms and fitness studios, on Friday, said it has raised $1 million (Rs 6.5 crore) from professional shooter and India’s only individual Olympic gold medalist, Abhinav Bindra, and his business partner, Gaurav Marya, Chairman, Franchise India.

The fresh funds invested through Bindra’s venture fund, Shooting Star and Franchise India Brands Ltd, will be used to expand the full-suite of Fitpass’ service offerings across 10 cities in the next six months.

In December 2016, Fitpass had raised $1 million from Mumbai Angels and a consortium of Delhi and Bengaluru-based angel investors, to grow horizontally and add service verticals, data-driven highly personalised fitness management tools for its users as well as to rollout bespoke enterprise products to its partner gyms/ fitness studios, the company said here.

Available on iOS and Android, Fitpass makes fitness accessible and affordable for new-age Indian consumers who can work out at any gym/ fitness studio anytime and can choose from a variety of available workout options. In addition, they can also consult their dedicated personal nutritionist and follow curated artificial intelligence-led coaching plans on the Fitpass app to achieve faster results, said Arushi Verma, co-founder.

The Indian fitness services market is estimated at $16.6 billion per annum by PwC and is the fastest growing services market (25 per cent per annum). With two-thirds of Indians being under the age of 35 years, the demand for fitness services is growing at an exponential rate driven by a multitude of factors.

While disposable income among Indians has grown by 200 per cent over the last 5 years, India is now counted amongst the most unfit countries in the world. In fact, one in three Indians is classified as medically unfit or suffering from a preventable lifestyle disease. An estimated 430 million Indians suffer from hypertension and blood pressure, more than 182 million from diabetes and over 65 million from obesity. WHO attributes physical inactivity and an unhealthy diet as the primary reasons for rising lifestyle diseases in India.

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