Health and fitness community platform Fittr on Thursday said it has raised USD 11.5 million (about Rs 84.7 crore) in funding, co-led by Dream Capital and Elysian Park Ventures. Existing investor Sequoia Capital’s India Surge also participated in the Series A funding round.
Dream Capital is the venture capital and M&A arm of Dream Sports, while Elysian Park Ventures is the private investment arm of the LA Dodgers ownership group. Ambit acted as the exclusive financial advisor to Fittr. The new capital will enable India-based Fittr to accelerate its growth and expansion into new markets, including North America, the UK and Singapore that currently accounts for 30 per cent of the company’s overall revenue.
The company will also continue to focus on educating the Indian population around health and fitness. Additionally, the funds will be utilised in strengthening the leadership of the company with new strategic hiring and offering new services to users, Fittr founder and CEO Jitendra Chouksey told PTI.
“Fittr has grown 100 per cent organically through word-of-mouth and based on the transformation results shared by members via the Facebook community and app. Fittr recently crossed USD 10 million in annualised booking run-rate and in FY21, achieved gross bookings of USD 9.3 million (about Rs 68 crore) to become one of the world’s largest community-based fitness brands,” he added. He said that the company’s current ARR (annualised run rate) stands at USD 15 million, he added.
“Fittr aims to enter the list of startup unicorns… Elysian Park Ventures and Dream Capital joining the community enables us to accelerate our work to help millions of people around the world get fit, and also to create meaningful career opportunities in the health and fitness industry over the next few years,” Chouksey said. The firm began as a small WhatsApp group and in the past five years of operations, it has received over USD 13.5 million investment from marquee investors, including actor Suniel Shetty. The company, which currently has over 150 employees, has been profitable since inception.
The company has trained and transformed over two lakh people. In FY21, it crossed 65,000 paid users and created employment opportunities for over 500 coaches. “Fittr recently launched personal training/coaching service on its platform and has recorded about 20 per cent month-on-month growth. Along with strengthening the core services further, Fittr aims to create employment for more than 1,000 coaches in the next 12-18 months,” Chouksey said.
As a long-term goal, the company is working to make 50 million people fit and create one lakh career opportunities in the fitness industry, he added. Talking about international operations, Chouksey said as part of the next phase of growth, the company is looking at expanding in new markets, including North America, the UK and Singapore, and strengthening its base in the US market.
“With the inclusion of new offerings and expansion in new markets, we expect the international revenues to grow considering Fittr’s unique community focussed business model,” he added.
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