KFit gets funding, including from 500 Startups, to be a Netflix for gyms and fitness clubs

KFit launches today as a monthly subscription that opens up dozens of health clubs in cities across Asia to its users. The service is aimed at people, says founder Joel Neoh, who don’t have gym memberships, Indeed, the new startup is hoping to pull in people who wouldn’t really consider signing up to a gym because they’d be terrified of being forced into slogging on the machines for a year in order to get value for money.

So KFit is about a choice of professional exercise venues in your city. “It’s best if you want to try three of four things every month,” says Neoh. He likens it to Spotify or Netflix.

From doing his homework, Neoh reckons that about 90 percent of people in Malaysia’s urban areas don’t have memberships to any fitness centers. And that’s repeated throughout much of Asia. He’s launching KFit to the public today after running in quiet beta for a month.

KFit is now available in Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, and Hong Kong with a selection of health club options in each. Melbourne, Sydney, and Auckland will be added by the end of the month. The startup team is already up to 40 employees as they rush to rope in gyms, yoga classes, pools, and a variety of other exercise options. The plan is to add a new city each week. The choices in each city will vary, and the prices will be set separately depending on how pricey that locality tends to be.

It’s something already taking off in the US with services such as Vint, and Classpass.

KFit revealed today that it has raised a seven-figure US-dollar seed funding round from 500 Startups, SXE Ventures, and Founders Global. Two angel investors also joined in – Daniel Shin, founder and CEO of Ticket Monster, and Danny Yeung, the former CEO of Groupon Hong Kong. Yeung is a former Groupon Asia teammate of Neoh.

Serial entrepreneur strikes again

This is the first new startup since 2010 for serial entrepreneur Neoh (pictured below). His previous venture was started up in that year and was acquired – by Groupon, no less – before the year was out. That resulted in him becoming Groupon’s VP for APAC, a position he left only a few of weeks ago.

In the short sliver of time since leaving the daily deals giant he has been building up KFit ready for today’s launch.

Though KFit sounds very different from the world of daily deals, Groupon, and Groupsmore (Neoh’s Malaysian startup from 2010 that Groupon snapped up so quickly), Neoh says the two concepts are not a world away from one another. “It’s about local commerce,” he points out – but this time it’s health clubs rather than retailers.

“Consumers are super connected, but businesses are not,” Neoh says, and that’s why he sees a big opportunity in – years after daily deals persuaded local stores to get on the web and engage with nearby shoppers – connecting gyms and other fitness destinations with people in the same city. Like with restaurants, gyms often have a lot of empty slots to be filled at off-peak times, and a broader array of users that would come from flexible subscriptions would fill many of those gaps.