There is nothing really new about SoftBank wanting to invest in industry leaders in any country’s startup ecosystem, especially India. And there is nothing new about startups wanting to become Unicorns with a fat cheque from the fund.
Masayoshi Son led $100 billion SoftBank Vision Fund (SVF) is now in talks with Indian health and fitness industry leader CureFit to invest about $200 million in the firm, while CureFit is looking for a $1 billion valuation for this investment round.
The talks are still in the nascent stage and the funding amount isn’t nearly fixed yet. It can range anywhere between $200-350 million. The valuation sought by CureFit, however, is the double of its $500 million in recent $75 million round.
With the Unicorn tag and the funding in the pocket, the Mukesh Bansal co-founded CureFit wants to become a global company.
The company that operates with four verticals – Cult.Fit, Eat.Fit, Mind.Fit, and Care.Fit – has about 130 Cult.Fit centers across Delhi NCR, Mumbi, Hyderabad, and Bengaluru. And with the funding, it not only aims to take the domestic number to 250 by the end of 2019, but it also plans to open international fitness centers starting with Dubai.
For all four verticals plan is to increase inventory to about 1,000 outlets overall in the next 2-3 years.
Apart from this, the firm is also planning to manufacture and sell products like smart and activewear, while co-creating workouts with celebs like Hrithik Roshan, KL Rahul, and Tiger Shroff, reports TOI.
As we can see this is a heavily capital intensive business where outlets are to be purchased or rented out, location has to be apt, products have to be created, celebs have to paid in hefty amounts, the path of growth now is going to be quite difficult for CureFit in terms of taking the business towards a sustainable growth.
It will require more capital than what the company might get right now, but then SoftBank is known for its massive follow up rounds.
