Mobiefit, m-fitness startup backed by Gul Panag, raises pre-series A funding of $1.35M

With its top fitness products, Mobiefit Run and Mobiefit Body, Mobiefit has created a niche in the growing Indian fitness industry.

Health and fitness startup Mobiefit, which was co-founded by actress and fitness advocate Gul Panag, has raised $1.35 million (Rs 8.7 Crore) in a pre-Series A funding round led by Dubai-based fund NB Ventures with co-investment from medical insurance facilitator MediAssist.

Mobiefit was born at Prototyze, the Goa-based venture builder, and was co-founded by Gul with Shantanu Raghav, Sushant Chavan, Pravar Peri and Gourav Jaswal, the Founder and Director of Prototyze.

Focusing on fitness-centred mobile apps, Mobiefit aims to help users achieve their fitness goals in a stipulated time frame through their smartphones. It currently has two offerings for health-conscious consumers – Mobiefit Body and Mobiefit Run.

This investment of $1.35 million follows Mobiefit’s seed round of about $1 million in December 2015, which was led by MediAssist and included prominent angels Siddharth Parekh, the Founder of private equity firm Paragon Partners, and Mahesh Murthy, of SeedFund.

NB Ventures is a $50 million Dubai-based fund, whose recent Indian investments include participation in $7 million Series A for diet and nutrition company HealthifyMe.

MediAssist is an Indian healthcare data management company, which processes the insurance claims of over 25 million Indians and provides wellness services to over 5,500 companies.

Keeping it strong

Launched in 2015, Mobiefit has crossed 750,000 downloads for its two products, making it the highest number of downloads for any specialised Indian fitness app.

“We have over 500,000 registered users, and more than 30,000 people plan their fitness sessions every month through a Mobiefit app. Remarkably, three out of every 25 people who use the app for the first month grow to doing a staggering number of over 10 fitness sessions a month by the third month. This indicates strong adherence,” says Shantanu, Co-founder and Head of Product at Mobiefit.

With Gul the face of the brand, Mobiefit is creating a niche in the crowded healthtech market with its specialised training programmes created by fitness icons such as Milind Soman, Bani J and former Mr World Anoop Thakur Singh.

Gul says: “With the launch of its paid programmes six months ago, Mobiefit became the first fitness app from India to offer training programmes via in-app subscriptions.”

She claims that the brand’s growth is driven by the competitive pricing (starting at Rs 199 onwards), which is “a fraction of the cost of traditional means like gyms and fitness trainers”.

Also read: With CureFit, Mukesh Bansal wants to jumpstart a fitness movement in India

On Google Playstore, Mobiefit Body is 4.6 starred across 3,800-plus ratings and Mobiefit Run has 4.3 stars across over 2,800 ratings. Companies like Runtastic, Strava and Freeletics—three of the most prominent global fitness products—are rated lower than Mobiefit Body.

Mobiefit has also debuted a YouTube channel with over 750 original fitness videos covering exercise instructions and motivation. It has also been the virtual training partner for 10,000-plus competitive runners across over a dozen running-events in India.

Tracking some healthy investments in the space

With an increasing shift towards health and fitness, the healthtech space has been receiving significant attention from investors.

In August this year, health and wellness startup Cure.fit raised $25 million in a Series B round of funding from existing investors Accel Partners, IDG Ventures, Kalaari Capital and UC-RNT fund.

In June this year, FITPASS, a provider of access passes to gyms and fitness studios, announced that it had raised $1 million in a round led by Olympic gold medallist Abhinav Bindra and his business partner Gaurav Marya, Chairman, Franchise India.

Also read: FITPASS raises $1M from Olympic gold medallist Abhinav Bindra

Machine learning fitness discovery and booking platform Growfitter.com secured $600,000 in pre-Series A funding from capital firm SQue Capital in June this year.