8fit, a health and fitness app that offers tailored workout and meal plans, closes $7M Series A

8fit, a popular health and fitness app that offers tailored workouts and meals plan, has raised $7 million in Series A funding. Backing the round are VCs Creandum and Eight Roads Ventures. It brings total funding for the Berlin-based startup to $10 million.

Separately, a source tells me that the company is generating more than $1 million in monthly recurring revenue from selling fitness and meal plan subscriptions. 8fit declined to comment on revenue or active monthly users, paying or otherwise. All the startup would say is that it has 10 million registrations to the app.

Launched in 2014 by Pablo Villalba and Pedro Solá, the 8fit app attempts to separate itself from the plethora of either fitness or recipe apps on iOS and Android, with a focus on personalisation and by recognising that a combination of exercise and nutrition or meal planning is the best path to a healthier lifestyle.

The 8fit app combines High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) and yoga workouts designed to be done anywhere, anytime with “wholesome, nutritious meal plans based on real food,” customised by food group or specific ingredients. The customised plans are tailored to an individual’s current fitness level and goals, whether that goal is weight loss, muscle gain, improved endurance, or simply more confidence, says the company.

In this sense, 8fit co-founder and CEO Villalba tells me, the startup is competing against traditional and incumbent meal plan and exercise services such as Weight Watchers who, he argues, have struggled to transition to mobile, rather than other fitness or recipe apps per se. Noteworthy, despite being headquartered in Berlin, more than 50 percent of 8fit registrations are based in the U.S.

Moving forward, the company is planning to focus on the U.S. market as well as use some of this Series A to invest in more editorial content, in a move that will position 8fit as a media company as much as a tech company.

Villalba’s thinking is that it is not enough to tell users what to do, and count steps or calories etc., but that to stay motivated they need to know why they are doing it. In other words, education is key to motivation and therefore is an important element to helping people get fit and healthy.