HealthifyMe to hire more coaches and reach 50L users

It all started in an excel sheet in 2011. From its first version, HealthifyMe has now become the largest digital wellness platform catering over 5 lakh users with about 100 coaches.

Before co-founding the startup with Sachin Shenoy and Mathew Cherian, in 2012, Tushar Vashisht was on an experiment by living with an average Indian income of Rs 100 a day. “It was a personal journey to see how it was to live with Rs 100,” said Vashisht, thus understanding more about nutrition and calorie intake.

 In 2013, the startup had 10,000 users, tracking their calorie intake, among others.
But in 2014, it struggled even to pay salary to its 15-odd employees. “I told my team about the situation and this pushed us to innovation,” said the co-founder.

At this point, the startup decided apart from charging certain amount, they could also try nutritional counselling and motivate the users to be healthy and fit. It took off and the startup also begun offering programmes for corporates. It has partnered with medical institutions such as Medanta-The Medicity, Apollo ACODE and Manipal Hospitals.

“We use technology and human services to target weight loss. The app enables users to keep a track of their calories and set personal fitness goals. While we are already the leading app for health/fitness in India, our aim is to be the best in the world and we will continue to invest heavily in our technology and product,” said Vashisht, adding it boasts of the world’s largest database of Indian foods and syncs with all leading wearables, including Fitbit, YuFit and MiBand, among others.

HealthifyMe also has a gamified, social platform that is being used by corporates to engage and reward employees for healthy behaviour. “Corporates love us and the wellness programme is massively scalable,” he said. HealthifyMe, which has its presence in Bengaluru, Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai, engages employees wholistically around healthy eating, weight and hydration, among others.

Growth dimensions

The startup sources in-house nutritionists and from the present 100 coaches, it
plans to take the number to 1,000. From 5 lakh users, it plans to reach 50 lakh
users soon.

It recently raised $6 million in Series A funding, which was led by IDG Ventures India, Inventus Capital and Blume Ventures. Vashisht said the startup will use the same significantly in product and technology.

While certain features are free, the charges start from Rs 800 and will go on till Rs 1,300 a month.

“We are also planning to acquire a few startups that are into this space. Every month we are witnessing 10% growth,” he said, adding that users are engaged even at 3 am and it shows how the app helps them in tracking their calories.