Fitternity, a discovery platform for workout classes and other fitness services based in Mumbai, has raised $1 million in seed funding led by Exfinity Venture Partners.
The company’s search platform, which lets users book free trials with exercise classes, personal trainers, and nutritionists, is currently available in Mumbai, Pune and Bangalore, with operations starting in Delhi soon. Fitternity claims to have more than 50,000 active users who have booked 17,000 trials.
It will use its new capital to improve its search engine and booking tools, which allow users to pay for sessions directly through Fitternity’s app.
Founder and chief executive officer Neha Motwani came up with the idea for her startup after struggling to balance her busy schedule as a consultant with working out.
“That’s when I realized while it was so easy to find a restaurant, book a hotel, find coupons for your next purchase at the local store, when it comes to fitness, there is no platform that makes it easy for users to access fitness services available in their vicinity,” she said in an email.
While researching her business idea, Motwani talked to more than 500 people in six major cities and saw that many had the same problem. Most relied on word-of-mouth references or Google searches, but many fitness providers don’t have their own websites. Business directories like JustDial don’t have enough specific details, so Fitternity strives to give users as much information so they can pick the right classes or teacher.
The company monetizes by selling discounted memberships and plans to launch a “pay-as-you-go” service soon so users can book individual sessions. Fitternity plans to expand by adding more providers in its current four markets and launching more categories, like delivery services for healthy meals.