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Health and fitness platform HealthifyMe has raised funding of $12 million from Sistema Asia Fund and Samsung NEXT. It expects to turn profitable next year.
The round of funding saw participation from Singapore-based Atlas Management, Dream Incubator, in addition to existing investors IDG Ventures, Inventus Capital, Blume Ventures, NB Ventures. The funding will be used to strengthen its AI capabilities, expand its India offerings and launch in other emerging markets, according to company executives.
The funding will also see Sistema Asia Fund getting a Board seat in the start-up.
The last investment that the start-up received was in 2016 for $6 million led by IDG Ventures, Inventus Capital, Blume Ventures and NB Ventures.
HealthifyMe counts itself as a company with possibly the largest healthcare database, with its users being coached on nutrition and fitness.
Tushar Vashisht, CEO, HealthifyMe, said the company has booked annualised revenue run rate (ARR) of $4.5 million, has one million active monthly users and has tracked 200 million foods in India and abroad.
Kirill Kozhevnikov, MD and Partner, Sistema Asia Fund Advisory, said in a statement that the fund is a strong believer in preventive healthcare instead of disease treatment approach. While HealthifyMe has a 10 per cent marketshare, going forward it faces issues of scaling up, as there are not enough nutritionists and trainers in the country. To scale, the start-up has resorted to using Artificial Intelligence (AI), which would give a user advice on calories consumed and what kind of food to be eaten when a person is say diabetic.
Ria AI chatbot
In line with this, the start-up launched its Ria AI chatbot, which is similar to Apple’s Siri or Google’s Assistant and advises a user on fitness regimens or food to eat.
HealthifyMe has 200 coaches and charges ₹999-1,699 every month but Vashisht feels that using AI he can scale business faster. According to estimates, India has around one lakh certified nutritionists. HealthifyMe retains 90 per cent of its subscribers.
With the funding, Ria’s accuracy rate, which is 77 per cent, can go up further, which would result in a higher retention rate of its customers, according to Vashisht.
The health and fitness segment is heating up in India as large chunks of high and middle-class people are getting increasingly health conscious, due to better disposable income and rising instances of lifestlye and other ailments.
This has fuelled many ventures such as CureFit and FITPASS. The fitness technology market in India is expected to double in value to $250 million by 2023, according to a report by Grant Thornton, IVCA and Kalaari Capital.
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