Curefit Acquires US-Based Onyx For At-Home Fitness Tracking Tech

Bengaluru-based health and fitness startup Curefit has acquired Silicon Valley fitness startup Onyx to improve its computer vision technology for at-home fitness products and expanding business internationally.

Founded in San Francisco in 2018 by Asaf Avidan Antonir and James Sha, Onyx’s body tracking technology helps in personalising feedback, providing accurate rep counts, form correction and detailed performance tracking for workout activities. Curefit’s technology head Shamik Sharma said Onyx brings gym-like personalised training to users at home.

Curefit cofounder Mukesh Bansal said Onyx fits into the company’s vision of creating a hardware agnostic AI-led platform for guided physical fitness, mental wellness and nutrition.

“Users will get a personalised experience with high quality tech and human touch, and will be able to achieve their fitness goals from the comfort of their homes without spending on expensive hardware.”

The development comes soon after Curefit launched operations in the US, with virtual fitness sessions. The Onyx technology enable phone cameras to track movements of users as they are working out with real-time guidance on posture, form and more. The app allows users to track their progress and compete with friends. The fitness tracking technology is also being used by Curefit in India for its virtual sessions.

Founded by Myntra cofounder Mukesh Bansal and former Flipkart executive Ankit Nagori in 2016, Curefit operates multiple verticals in the fitness, nutrition and mental wellbeing space with Cult.fit for physical fitness, Mind.fit for yoga and mental fitness as well as Eat.fit, its food and nutrition business. The company also launched Care.fit for preventive care as well as telemedicine services.

During the lockdown in 2020, Curefit had to scale back operations in many of its locations thanks to the restrictions on retail businesses. While it transitioned to virtual classes and at-home fitness in the interim, it had to lay off more than 1500 employees during this period.

In recent months, it has focussed heavily on Eat.fit after scaling down the business post the lockdown. In October, the company announced that Eat.fit will be an independent entity as “rising consumer demands” necessitated a bigger focus on the business. Earlier in August,the company had closed kitchens in over a dozen cities to focus only on Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Coimbatore.