Just nine months after the completion of a $12 million Series B round, HealthifyMe, a leading e-health and fitness platform in India, has raised an additional $6 million as an extension of that round.
As reported by the Indian media, the round has involved Sistema Asia Capital, one of the corporate venturing vehicles of the Russian conglomerate AFK Sistema, Blume Ventures, IDG Ventures India (now Chiratae Ventures), Inventus Capital, Samsung NEXT, as well as Innoven Capital.
Aiming “to build the world’s largest online health and fitness service,” the startup seeks to use the funding “to launch in other emerging markets [in addition to India] where obesity and lifestyle diseases are growing exponentially,” stated Tushar Vashisht, the startup’s CEO, as HealthifyMe closed the February round.
“The funding will also help us expand our offerings portfolio to affiliated products and services that our customers need,” he added.
Besides, the company intends to use the funds to fuel its R&D in the fields of AI and data science.
1,500 exercises to lose weight
Co-founded in 2012 by Tushar Vashisht and Sachin Shenoy, and incubated by Microsoft Accelerator, HealthifyMe touts itself as “India’s largest digital wellness platform” covering over 200 cities around the globe with the help of over 200 coaches.
With over a million monthly users, the startup claims its user base grew more than three-fold and reached four million in 2017.
Available for free, this “mobile weight-loss coach” enables users “to track their calories, set personal fitness goals — weight loss, eating healthy or staying fit — and measure progress” through “real-time insights and automated analytics on users’ health.” HealthifyMe puts users in contact with qualified Indian nutritionists and trainers “who review their progress, provide tailored diet and exercise plans and work with the users to help them achieve their fitness goals.”
The platform gives “the new, quantified you” access to the database of over 50,000 Indian foods and 1,500 exercises.
Last year, the startup launched the world’s first AI coach. Dubbed “Ria,” it is “powered by 150 million food logs, 15 million messages and over a millennium of experience” and is “the best nutritionist and the best fitness trainer at once,” reads its website.
In early 2016, HealthifyMe received $6 million in a Series A funding round led by IDG Ventures India, Inventus Capital, Blume Ventures and NB Ventures.
Since its inception in early 2016, Sistema Asia Capital (previously known as Sistema Asia Fund) has invested in a variety of Indian startups.
Another active Russian VC in India is RTP Global, formerly known as Ru-Net.
