HealthifyMe raises pre-Series A funding, shifts base to Singapore

Caeruz Ventures Pvt Ltd that runs health and fitness app HealthifyMe said on Thursday it has raised undisclosed amount from a group of individual investors. Last month, it had raised money from handset maker Micromax. Both these investments are clubbed as part of its pre-Series A round of funding.

Gopal Srinivasan, chairman, TVS Capital Funds; Bala Parthasarathy, managing partner of seed stage investor AngelPrime; Sashi Reddi, founder of AppLabs, Amit Gupta, co-founder InMobi; Pallav Nadhani, co-founder of FusionCharts, Roopa Nath, member Mumbai Angels among others participated in this round of private funding of the firm.

Investment from Micromax in HealthifyMe was part of the mobile manufacturer's strategy to drive the mobile ecosystem for its consumers.

Tushar Vasisht, co-founder and CEO, refused to disclose the size of the investment and said now the company has moved its headquarters to Singapore as it looks to launch the app in other countries.

The company had previously raised $250,000 angel investment in 2012 from Rajesh Mushroowala (board member of Sytel and AngelPrime), Srini Koppulu (Hyderabad Angels), Arun Seth (former chairman of Alcatel-Lucent India), Kunal Bajaj (former board member One97 Communications),  Sashi Reddi and a few others.

"With this funding we are going to provide fitness and weightloss at a fraction of market value and provide employment for hundreds of nutritionists and trainers," Vasisht said.

HealthifyMe said it intends to use the funds for growth and is planning to hire more than 1,000 nutritionists and fitness trainers.

It also plans to include in-app real-time access to nutritionists or trainers or yoga instructors who would work digitally with the user on their personal fitness and weight loss objectives. Users will get diet plans, workout plans, access to an online support community and much more as part of the new structures that will be offered.

Founded in 2012, HealthifyMe claims it has helped over 100,000 users to keep track of their fitness and nutrition needs and manage their weight.

Several digital health and fitness related ventures have attracted investors in the recent past.

Actress, activist and fitness advocate Gul Panag partnered startup incubator Prototyze to launch a health and fitness centered mobile app startup MobieFit Technologies Pvt Ltd. Panag will act as co-founder and chief fitness officer at MobieFit. MobieFit has been seed-funded by Prototyze.

Then there are fitness discovery ventures such as Delhi-based Fitraq Services Pvt Ltd, which owns and operates gym & fitness centres discovery site Fitraq.com, that raised $150,000 (Rs 94 lakh) in funding from Tarun Arora, MD of Northern Collection and Credit Bureau (NCCB), India.

Bangalore-based Orobind Fitness Technologies Pvt Ltd, which runs a mobile marketplace of fitness experts under the same brand, raised $200,000 (about Rs 1.26 crore) from a group of angels including Harpreet Singh Grover, co-founder, Cocubes; Lalit Mangal, co-founder, CommonFloor.com; and Toppr.com co-founder Zishaan Hayath.

In January this year, another marketplace for fitness service providers Gympik.com, had raised $135,000 (about Rs 86 lakh) in seed funding from Capvent's managing partners Tom Clausen and Rohan Ajila, as well as manufacturing firm Haldyn Glass.

Last October, Mumbai-based Manna Healthcare Pvt Ltd, the company behind weight-loss app ObiNo, raised seed funding from healthcare incubator Healthstart.