By Srinath Srinivasan
What started as a calorie counter has today become one of the largest health and fitness businesses in the country. HealthifyMe’s CEO and co-founder Tushar Vashisht, says, “When I moved to India, I realised I had gained a lot of weight. When I checked the data, India went from 14% to 29% obesity in less than a decade, between 2005-2015.
People were moving to sedentary habits and weren’t eating healthy. So I created a calorie counter.” Later, Vashisht and his team brought on a human layer to their calorie counter—a set of nutritionists and trainers to service users. Within a few years, the company was able to collect enough data, which led to the creation of Ria, an AI powered nutritionist. With Ria at the centre, there are now smart plans for users that are also affordable.
Today, the company has 10 million users and recieves a billion messages from its users which goes back into training Ria. “When we hit 100 million messages a month roughly a year and a half ago, we decided to launch Ria directly to our consumers. Before that our coaches made use of the AI,” says Vashisht, talking about how technology has been at the forefront always. Technology also plays an important role for the company to acquire and retain customers, taking the burden off the coaches’ shoulders. Currently, 500 coaches are active on the platform. “Our coaches today are comfortably able to make `25,000-`50,000 a month,” he says.
Vashisht believes that being digital gives HealthifyMe an advantage. “We are all digital, all online which makes us asset light. It also makes our business scalable and profitable unlike others. We are present in 220 cities. I think there is a large market that can support various business models and our model is for all age groups and classes,” says Vashisht.
According to him, the company is addressing a $2.5-3 billion digital market directly and with food and snacks service on the same platform, another $2 billion indirectly. The company has raised $25 million so far from VCs across the globe in multiple rounds. HealthifyMe’s India business will be operationally profitable this year and the company is also present in Malaysia and Singapore. In these countries, the markets are made hyperlocal, with local nutritionists and trainers, which gives the company a rich local database. Out of all the markets the company is present in, India is still the largest revenue contributor with over 80 % revenue share (of an undisclosed base).
“We cracked a market like India which doesn’t give equal importance to fitness like other mature markets. We are working to create awareness which is a major challenge,” says Vashisht. He aims to overcome this by delivering results and marketing the results as opposed to advertisements. With more players coming up in this space, many from other countries, Vashisht is banking on his products to continue with its leadership position. He hints at the evolution of HealthifyMe into a more personalised, innovative AI product with new services – focussing on preventive, remedial, reversible and diagnostics aspects of healthcare.
