Tata Digital to pour $75m into ex-Flipkart execs’ fitness startup

Tata Digital, a unit of Tata Group’s investment holding company, announced it has signed a memorandum of association to invest up to US$75 million in health and fitness startup CureFit.

Photo credit: Tata Group

Under the deal, CureFit’s founder and CEO Mukesh Bansal will join Tata Digital as the president of the company even as he continues to lead the fitness startup.

However, it remains unclear whether Tata Digital has acquired CureFit as it didn’t specify other details of the deal.

The development comes after it was reported late last month that Tata Group was looking to acquire CureFit.

Bansal was the co-founder of online fashion startup Myntra, which was acquired by Flipkart in 2014. He established CureFit with another former Flipkart executive, Ankit Nagori.

The Indian conglomerate reportedly believes in letting the founders of the companies it has acquired to continue running the businesses as they have domain knowledge. Tata Digital operates the ecommerce service Tata CLiQ, online grocery store StarQuik, and online electronics platform Croma.

In May, it acquired online grocery BigBasket following its acquisition of online pharmacy 1mg.

Its deal with CureFit is in line with the steel-to-salt Indian firm’s broader ambition to launch its own super app and gain an early advantage over other players.

CureFit, which rebranded as Cult.fit just this month, has raised US$418 million to date. Tata Digital’s investment in the startup will help the Indian company expand into the health management space.

“The Tata Digital partnership will significantly accelerate CureFit’s growth as a fitness and wellness leader and it will open up access to a large set of the new consumer base,” said Sudhir Sethi, chairman of Chirate Ventures and member of the CureFit board.