Tatas to invest in pandemic-hit Curefit, Mukesh Bansal to join Tata Digital as president

Less than two weeks after snapping up a majority stake in grocery etailer BigBasket, Tata Digital, a wholly owned subsidiary of Tata Group holding entity Tata Sons, said it had entered into an agreement to invest up to $75 million (Rs 545 crore) in CureFit Healthcare.  

As part of the transaction, Mukesh Bansal, co-founder and CEO of CureFit Healthcare will join Tata Digital in an executive role as president, Tata Digital said in a statement. Bansal will continue in his leadership role at the company, it added. 

The deal is subject to customary approvals. 

“The CureFit partnership with its industry leading platform in fitness and wellness aligns very well with our overall healthcare proposition where fitness is increasingly becoming an integral part of a consumers’ life,” Tata Sons chairman N Chandrasekaran said. As part of Tata Digital, Cure would be able to scale its offerings nationally, Bansal added. 

CureFit Healthcare was founded in 2016 by Bansal, who earlier co-founded fashion ecommerce platform Myntra (which was acquired by Flipkart) and former Flipkart executive Ankit Nagori. The startup was formed to cater to the preventive healthcare market through a combination of engagement, coaching and delivery, using both online and offline channels. 

Early last month, after several re-organisation efforts to survive the Covid-19 pandemic, Curefit Healthcare rebranded its health and fitness umbrella brand Cure.fit to Cult.fit, its flagship fitness vertical. Cult.fit, the Bengaluru-based company’s primary line of business since inception, operates sport facilities of equipment-less group workouts, online fitness classes, gym- and equipment-based workouts, and swimming, among others. 

Late last year, Cult.fit forayed into gyms with the launch of cross-gym access Cult Pass, an asset-light model further accelerated through acquisitions of Fitternity and Onyx in 2021. In May last year, at the peak of the first wave of the pandemic, the startup laid off several of its employees, including trainers and housekeeping staff, from Cult.fit.  

“The lockdown has affected all our business offerings and we do not see the situation improving for quite some time, considering the pandemic spread has affected all the markets we operate in. This unprecedented situation has forced us to close operations in small towns in India and the UAE,” a spokesperson told TechCircle at the time. 

Last year, Curefit Healthcare raised Rs 832 crore in a funding round led by Singapore government backed Temasek, media reports said. The round also saw the entry of two new investors -- GableHorn Investments and Ascent Capital. Prior to this, the startup had raised $120 million (Rs 832.6 crore) in its Series D round of funding via equity and debt in 2019. The round was led by existing investors Chiratae Ventures (formerly IDG Ventures India), Accel, Kalaari Capital and Oaktree Capital, Cure Fit said in a statement at the time. 

Apart from Fitternity and Onyx, Curefit Healthcare’s other acquisitions include cold-pressed juice brand Rejoov, Bengaluru-based a1000yoga, online food delivery firm Kristys Kitchen, and integrated mental wellness platform Seraniti.