Tata Digital pumps $75 m into CureFit; co-founder & CEO Mukesh Bansal to continue to lead fitness start-up

Getting people on board who have sound knowledge of digital businesses will aid the Tatas to grow their digital capabilities.

Strengthening its footprint in the e-commerce space to compete with the bigger players, Tata Digital on Monday said it has entered into an agreement to invest up to $75 million in fitness start-up CureFit Healthcare.

Tata Digital recently completed its acquisition of e-grocer BigBasket, and is understood to be close to acquiring a significant stake in online pharmacy 1mg. Mukesh Bansal, the founder & CEO of CureFit will join Tata Digital as president while continuing his leadership role at CureFit, Tata Digital said in a statement.

Tata Digital and CureFit did not disclose the specifics of the deal.

Analysts said the Tata Group, which already has an established presence in the traditional services sector, is looking to add new-age health and wellness services to its bouquet of offerings. The partnership with CureFit will help build on that strategy. “The Tatas have anyway announced their ambition to be a super app. The investment adds to that capability,” said Arpit Mathur, partner at Kearney. Access to talent is another area that the Tatas are looking at with this investment.

Getting people on board who have sound knowledge of digital businesses will aid the Tatas to grow their digital capabilities.

CureFit, on its part, will leverage the partnership to gain access to new customers; the Tatas already have a significant proportion of lifestyle and service customers. Besides, CureFit may also want to focus on setting up new business verticals and look at adding high value services soon from the entry level offerings they currently provide. “This is more of a strategic investment than financial,” Mathur added.

Bengaluru-based CureFit provides a range of online and offline health and fitness services to users including workout sessions, consultation with experts and personal training. They also offer select fitness merchandise.

Tata Digital said that CureFit will help the firm expand into pro-active health management space. “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,” N Chandrasekaran, chairman, Tata Sons, said.

Indian fitness and wellness market is growing at nearly 20% annually and is expected to reach about $12 billion by 2025.

“Being part of Tata Digital will enable us to nationally scale up our offerings for our customers,” said Mukesh Bansal, co-founder & CEO at CureFit.

The Tatas are building on an array of online services to take on Amazon, Walmart-backed Flipkart and Reliance who are already jostling for a bigger share of the e-commerce market.