MUMBAI: Days after finishing a majority stake buy in online grocer Bigbasket, Tata Digital on Monday announced a $75 million (over Rs 545 crore) investment in Curefit, a fitness and well-being startup co-founded by Mukesh Bansal, for an undisclosed stake.
Bansal, who also co-founded Myntra and worked with Flipkart after the fashion e-tailer’s acquisition, will also join Tata Digital in an “executive role” as president, an official statement said, adding he will continue to head Curefit.
Tata Digital is fully owned by Tata Sons, the holding company for all the companies in the salt-to-software conglomerate.
Late last month, it finished acquiring a 64 per cent stake in Bigbasket in a deal that reportedly values the target company at $2 billion.
The conglomerate is betting on Tata Digital to build digital businesses that address consumer needs, and has reportedly been allocated Rs 12,000 crore for acquisitions and investments by the parent.
The company will be competing against deep-pocket ventures like Flipkart, Amazon and Reliance Retail for a play in the digital marketplace.
The statement from Tata Digital said Indian fitness and wellness market is growing at 20 per cent per annum and is expected to reach $12 billion by 2025.
The company has entered into a memorandum of understanding for investing up to $75 million in Curefit Healthcare subject to completion of diligence process and other approvals, it added.
“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.
Welcoming Bansal, Chandrasekaran said his deep consumer experience and an entrepreneurial mindset after having incubated and grown two very successful businesses and his expertise will bring immense value, he added.
Bansal said joining Tata Digital is an exciting new step for him and his team, and also a recognition of the value they have created with Curefit.
“Being part of Tata Digital will enable us to nationally scale up our offerings for our customers.
Tata Digital has highly inspiring vision to create next generation consumer platform,” Bansal said.
The Tata Digital statement said Curefit can capture a “large share” of the market opportunity given its strengths like a comprehensive solution and differentiated tech platform, and help it expand into pro-active health management space.
Sudhir Sethi, the chairman of Curefit’s earliest backers Chirate Ventures, said the partnership with Tata Digital will significantly accelerate Curefit’s growth as a fitness and wellness leader and open up access to a large set of new consumer base.
“It is a strong validation of the category leadership that cure.fit has and help Curefit grow rapidly as digital health takes off in a big way in next decade,” Sethi added.
Curefit had raised $120 million in a mix of equity and debt, in a round led by Chiratae, Accel Partners and Kalaari Capital.
On its website, Curefit identifies itself as an integrated platform for food, fitness and meditation.
It runs dedicated centres across the country and also runs online classes for subscribers.