In a departure from raucous partying on New 12 months’s Eve, 10,000 individuals celebrated throughout HealthifyMe’s social media channels, in a ‘Digital Dance Celebration’ with DJ GoApu. It was symbolic of 2020, a yr throughout which most of us had been indoors and glued to screens. Folks attended freed from value, as cities in India went beneath an evening curfew in view of COVID-19. The occasion was meant to kick off the diet-fitness platform’s FitFest 21, an app-only competition to advertise the ecosystem of wholesome dwelling.
Final yr, HealthifyMe helped individuals collectively lose two million kilograms in 9 months, towards the earlier yr’s a million kilograms, in line with co-founder and CEO Tushar Vashisht. They aren’t the one ones working within the tech-driven diet-fitness area that declare to have benefited from 2020’s home-bound, immunity-chasing, fear-ridden India.
Akshay Verma, co-founder, Fitpass that provides entry via a single membership to over 4,000 gyms and health studios throughout 17 cities, and in addition has health and weight loss plan options, says that in October to December 2020, enterprise grew by 25-30% in comparison with the identical time in 2019. This, contemplating the final quarter is often the leanest within the yr for the health business.
Sarvesh Shashi, founding father of SARVA that focusses on yoga-based wellness, says the platform recorded 1,440 hours of yoga and meditation movies over the past yr. Their 60+ on-ground studios have been shut, and the app took priority, requiring them to do a pivot to a digital-only mannequin.
The tech-driven health and weight loss plan area has grown and continues to take action, within the wake of individuals such as you and me turning into proactive about preventive well being and needing instruments to measure progress. At a time of paycuts, diminished mobility, and nervousness concerning the future, we wished one thing inexpensive, accessible, and enjoyable. Know-how gave us that, beaming reside exercises into our properties, a few of which simply had area for a yoga mat on a balcony.
Pandemic push
Internationally, expertise turned a weight loss plan and health enabler about 15 years in the past, going from calorie recorders to GPS-led health trackers, aggregators of studio courses, wearables, and now, AR screens that monitor coaching (See ‘At sturdy begin’ under).
Unicorns for actual
- These worldwide tech health corporations took valuations to past a billion {dollars} in 2020
- Classpass , a US-based health aggregator based in 2013 by Payal Kadakia, raised ({dollars}) 285 million, in January.
- Preserve, a five-year-old China-based firm working within the on-line and offline health area introduced an (greenback) 80 million funding, in Could.
In India although, we’re nonetheless monitoring steps and meals consumption on the most elementary degree. Startups need to capitalise on this, transferring throughout geographies, lapping up and retaining as many ‘customers’ as potential. That is totally different from the West, the place manufacturers are going deeper right into a handful of properties with extra concerned tech. Through the pandemic — nonetheless not over — on-line adverts have been cheaper, as a result of there was little advertising and marketing by the leisure sector (cinema halls, as an illustration, opened two months after health centres). Folks have been on-line so much, so focused promoting was simpler. This resulted in a drop in the price of acquisition per particular person, says Verma.
Even though we’re enjoying catch-up with the West when it comes to health, what makes it thrilling is that the main focus is on expertise amping up effectivity: HealthifyMe’s ‘AI dietician’ Ria has introduced in 30% of their enterprise through the previous yr, whereas Fitpass’ ‘AI coach’ ARIA did nicely too with gyms being shut for about seven months.
As well as, there’s a sure Indian-mindset tech tweaking. As customers, we’re simply bored, lack self-discipline, and easily will need to have dessert on the finish of the meal (hi there rewards and recognition). StepSetGo, a winner within the Aatmanirbhar Bharat App Innovation Problem, as an illustration, discovered a drop in steps taken and a rise in screentime, within the preliminary days of lockdown. The platform makes use of a easy pedometer coupled with gamification (a leaderboard, cash earned, and ranges achieved) and gratification (via rewards) to get individuals to maneuver extra. Tech right here remains to be motivating individuals in the direction of an total more healthy way of life.
StepSetGo launched the FitGames problem, the place on-line video games on their app locked you out till you had taken just a few steps. Being avid gamers themselves, the founders draw from the gaming business. “The issue isn’t how you can depend your steps. The issue is how you can sustain your motivation,” says Shivjeet Ghatge, co-founder and CEO. Right now, with pandemic fatigue it’s all of the extra essential.
Considered one of StepSetGo’s key options is social engagement, essential in a yr we have been all bodily distant, and immediately realised the significance of group. Fittr that provides motivation and training providers, break up its bigger WhatsApp group into smaller ones, every headed by a coach, to make issues extra intimate, so individuals would share extra.
Flexing it
It wasn’t all enjoyable and video games although. Food regimen and health professionals misplaced jobs and plenty of aggregators have been compelled to supply big reductions on their month-to-month plans, and even the large gamers like cult.match have been it, although it has reopened greater than half its gyms now.
The businesses that would evolve their tech shortly although (and people who had giant funding, like remedy.match’s $400 greenback funding), did catch the tailwind, as Ashish Sharma, CEO, InnoVen Capital India, describes it. “Indians usually haven’t centered on health, however over the past 8-10 years, there was an elevated consciousness round what one eats and health objectives, in no small half pushed by social media and optimistic position fashions like Virat and Hrithik, so individuals need to look good,” he says. Buying energy has elevated too. The purpose he’s making is that we have been already on our bicycles pedalling (albeit slowly), so corporations may certainly catch the tailwind.
Sharma’s firm, a enterprise debt agency, has remedy.match and HealthifyMe as part of its portfolio. It additionally just a few within the well being area (1MG, DocsApp), amongst others. As an apart, he says that “gamers within the diet-fitness area needed to disrupt sooner, as a result of their success required new merchandise.” They have been additionally “driving long-term behaviour modifications and cultivating new habits.” Then again, “well being area startups caught tailwinds through the pandemic on account of present platform with environment friendly system for supply.”
Muscle and sinew
Founders breathed tech, and as they got here up with newer choices, their appreciation for it went up. “It’s the explanation we have been capable of do what we did,” says Verma, who says they shortly received trainers on-line, linking them with individuals who couldn’t go to the health club. Cult.match in actual fact, “will proceed to run offline companies, however solely in health, and can search for digital merchandise in all different well being verticals (psychological well being, medical care),” says Ankit Gupta, Head of Engineering and Org Operations. What has not modified is that almost all of those corporations, with tech-trained leaders on the helm, proceed to say that tech is the inspiration of the enterprise.
Sanil Sachar, Founding Accomplice, Huddle, a startup accelerator primarily based in Gurugram, says he retains reminding founders that expertise is simply an enabler. “You’ve received to masks it, make a product easy, although the issue could also be advanced. At The Wholesome Firm (a diet options enterprise), as an illustration, the AI that tells you what to eat, when to eat, isn’t the explanation the buyer is available in. Folks ought to have the ability to neglect that it’s a bot they’re speaking to,” he says.
He additionally makes a distinction between true tech and a placebo. A tool that prompts you to scrub arms and speaks to you about washing for lower than 20 seconds is placebo, he says, of the various providers that got here up in response to handwashing pointers and a few of the pandemic paranoia. “Whether it is monitoring progress — that’s tech.”
In a shock from pandemic instances, outside video games have gained individuals’s confidence. It’s one of many causes Arjun Singh Verma, COO, Hudle, a discovery-and-booking app for sports activities services, stays optimistic (he expects a 4x progress this yr). Another excuse is that the corporate has simply raised an undisclosed quantity in a pre-series A spherical of funding.
“Within the preliminary days of unlock, individuals have been reserving particular person sports activities like badminton and tennis,” he says. Right now, cricket and soccer have picked up too. It’s eye-opening that Delhi has about 100 soccer turfs, the place Kochi has double, opening up the prospect of taking the service to tier 2 cities the place many aggregating apps don’t go, however infrastructure exists.
Hudle can also be providing coaching to individuals who could by no means have performed a sport earlier than: like soccer coaching for girls throughout ages. Maybe subsequent yr, we’ll rejoice New 12 months’s Eve on a soccer pitch. Naturally, we’ll ebook it via an app and hyperlink with individuals digitally to kind a staff. Hopefully although, we are going to meet in particular person, to rejoice well being and togetherness.
A STRONG START
A quick historical past of worldwide tech-forward forerunners
Worldwide tech-driven startups working within the health and weight loss plan area captured our creativeness, however by no means went mass in India. “They have been too costly, we weren’t used to paying for apps, web connectivity was sketchy, and the health group itself was very small so individuals simply by no means received to learn about them,” says Gagan Dhillon Khullar, who labored with
Girls’s Well being journal in India heading the health vertical. Folks with minimal physique fats that appeared too onerous to realize and meals that have been alien, have been different causes. What these corporations did was to make tech related to health and weight loss plan attractive.
Food regimen monitoring
2005: MyFitnessPal started as a calorie-tracking app in 2005, when founder Mike Lee wished to drop some weight earlier than his seashore wedding ceremony. Launching first as an internet site after which as an app in 2009, after the iPhone App Retailer got here into being in 2008, it was the unique digital diet-and-weight-loss companion. You may merely feed in ‘burger’ as an illustration, and a predetermined calorific worth would seem, making it straightforward to calculate your energy consumption. This wasn’t accessible for Indian meals although, which meant you needed to feed in substances. The corporate was purchased by Beneath Armour in 2015 for USD 475 million and introduced its sale lately for a significantly cheaper price.
Health monitoring
2006: The Nike+iPod Sport Package got here into being, bringing collectively cool sneakers, a tool that performed music and spoke to you with updates on pace and distance, tech monitoring that recorded a coaching log, and a life-style that only some may afford however everybody wished. It had a shoe-mountable sensor and a small transmitter that plugged into the iPod Nano’s dock connector. Nike Coaching Membership was launched in 2008.
Health networking
2007: Endomondo, named after the endorphins launched after a bout of exercise, got here out as the unique health social community for runners and cyclists. It breathed its final on December 31 final yr 2020, retired by Beneath Armour who had acquired it the identical yr as MyFitnessPal. MapMyRun additionally got here into being the identical yr, and in addition received taken over by Beneath Armour in 2013. The now standard running-cycling tracker and health group builder Strava got here out solely in 2009.
Wearables
2009: Fitbit was the primary wearable system all of us coveted, although Garmin had launched the primary wrist-based GPS coach in 2003. All of the sudden, taking 10k steps turned a motion, and the corporate went on to be listed in 2015. Alphabet, Google’s holding firm, is buying it for {dollars} 2.1 billion, although it has needed to decide to Europe to not use Fitbit’s big information for advert focusing on for 10 years. The Apple Watch got here into being solely in 2015.
Linked residence health gear
2013: Peloton, the at-home stationary bike fitted with a touchscreen to stream reside classes (via subscriptions) was constructed on the recognition of New York’s cult in-studio SoulCycle and Flywheel. Forbes stories that it was lately added to the NASDAQ 100 inventory index. Mirror, a full size reflective glass that turns into an at-home interactive health system with a studio-like expertise, was began in 2018, and was acquired by health attire model Lululemon for 500 million {dollars} final yr. Hydrow, launched in 2019, markets itself as a “reside outside actuality” linked gear (you’re pictured rowing on the water).