BENGALURU: Cure.fit, the city-based startup co-owned by Myntra co-founder Mukesh Bansal and ex-Flipkart chief business officer Ankit Nagori, is geared up to open its first fitness centre overseas in Dubai come mid-2019, Economic Times reports.
The company claims that venturing into the UAE city will be considered as an experiment to determine the international success of its product before it decides to go bigger in other South and South East Asian countries such as Indonesia. In India itself, Cure.fit has opened 100 centres across Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Mumbai and New Delhi, planning to add 150 of them by venturing into 10 other cities by the end of the year.
“We’ve crossed 100 centres across Bangalore, Mumbai, Delhi-NCR, and Hyderabad and are planning to open one centre in Dubai by June. In 2019, we want to expand our presence to 10 cities in India and one international location. We also want to be the No.1 fitness brand in the country across all metrics — centres, members, usage — by then,” Nagori was quoted as saying to ET.
Cure.fit’s fitness centre SBU Cult.fit is planning to raise debt to scale the business while other SBUs such as Eat.fit and Care.fit will be relying on its 250,000-strong user base, which is also increasing. The company wishes to get that number to 1 million this year.
Founded in 2016, the startup’s rise began last year when it managed to raise $120 million from investors and gained revenues of $50 million. It also acquired one of India’s top gym chains, Fitness First in a deal worth $30-35 million as per global business networking platform, LinkedIn.
LinkedIn also rated Cure.fit as the second most sought-after Indian startup of 2018 in its 2018 survey. It has gained further popularity with Bollywood actors Hrithik Roshan and Tiger Shroff being its brand ambassadors, while also being one of the on-air and digital broadcast sponsors for Sony during India’s ongoing cricket tour of Australia.
