Fitness Startup Fitternity Gets $4 Mn Funding From Sixth Sense Ventures

Mumbai-based fitness discovery and booking startup Fitternity has secured $4 Mn in a fresh funding round from consumer-focused venture fund Sixth Sense Ventures.

The startup now plans to scale across three major focus areas, including:

• adding offerings in ancillary categories across sports and preventive healthcare
• scaling up the supply base in top 20 cities
• managing inventory at scale

Founded in 2014 by Neha Motwani and Jayam Vora, Fitternity is a fitness startup which runs an integrated marketplace for preventive healthcare. Fitternity helps people in discovering health-based destinations. The company has partnered with gyms and health clubs to offer discounts to its customers.

“Our business models are seeing great traction on both sides of demand and supply and we aim to scale across three major focus areas – adding offerings in ancillary categories across sports & preventive healthcare, scaling up our supply base in top 20 cities, and managing inventory at scale,” Motwani, founder and CEO, Fitternnity said.

Fitternity: 10K+ Centres, 10 Mn+ Customers And More

The startup has built a tech-enabled platform combining marketplace and subscription model for fitness services which encompass a $4 Bn market in India. On Fitternity, users can book fitness services in real-time across the ‘Fitternity assured’ network of over 4,000 service providers.

The company claims to leverage technology and data insights of over 10 Mn customers and over 10K fitness centres. Sixth Sense Ventures believes that Fitternity has pioneered the Pay-Per-Session model, membership portability and dynamic pricing.

The fitness startup has also partnered with insurance companies to offer fitness linked insurance premiums, and are replacing outdated gym reimbursements with portable and flexible Fitternity Sessions for leading corporates.

Jayam Vora, cofounder and COO said that with robust unit economics in place, the startup is confident to grow its revenue 6X over the next 12 months.

Nikhil Vora, founder and CEO of Sixth Sense, said, “Fitternity is a great fit for Sixth Sense as its business model has perfectly evolved to be relevant to the changing behaviours of the Indian consumer. Their innovative offerings make the platform extremely sticky. Our dream is to see Fitternity evolve to become the Google for discovering fitness, the BookMyShow for buying fitness and akin to a Zomato-Swiggy for consuming fitness.”

Fitness Market In India

Globally, the fitness marketplaces are effectively cashing upon the hectic and the stretched work schedule of the millennials. However, in India owing to the inherent price-sensitivity, a major part of the community has restricted itself from joining any kind of fitness regimen.

It is being discussed widely that preventive healthcare is the need of the hour and fitness is the primary driver. The Indian fitness market is at an inflection point, primed to scale up to $7 Bn by 2022.

Apart from Fitternity,  other major players who are building a different niche for themselves include Cult.Fit, Growfitter, Book Your Game, Gympik, FitTicket, Fitraq, and FitPass.

At present, fitness in India is a $3 Bn market growing at 18%, with only 4% of the market comprising of organised gym chains.

Sixth Sense Ventures believes that new fitness regimes such as cross-functional training, Zumba, HIIT, Pilates, kickboxing, etc have very high awareness amongst urban millennials. This is driving demand for mixed fitness routines and variety amongst Indian consumers, they believe.