Mukesh Bansal is one of the rare serial entrepreneurs who successfully created back to back ventures in the consumer internet space. His first firm Myntra was sold to Flipkart and later became a part of Walmart’s retail ecosystem in 2018 when the American retail giant acquired Flipkart.
While Myntra was acquired by Flipkart in 2014 in an estimated sum of about $280 million, it’s not public the kind of money Bansal and two other co-founders Ashutosh Lawania and Vineet Saxena had made.
Meanwhile, Bansal is on his way to make a killing for the consecutive time with his new partner Ankit Nagori. After leaving Flipkart, Bansal and Nagori launched a hybrid (offline+online) fitness platform Curefit in 2016.
Since its inception four years ago, the company has scaled up rapidly and raised over Rs 2,500 crore across four institutional rounds. Only last month, it had raised Rs 832 crore in a round led by Temasek. Entrackr had exclusively reported the financing.
Curefit was valued about Rs 5,490 crore ($732 million) in the last round. With the spike in estimated valuation of the firm, the value of Bansal’s stake jumped to Rs 680 crore ($90 million) while Ankit Nagori’s holding in the company is now worth Rs 420 crore ($56 million).
At present, Bansal and Nagori hold 12.37% and 7.63% stakes in Curefit, respectively. Temasek had acquired a 9.84% stake in Curefit by leading the last round while Kalaari Capital commands 11.8% ownership in the company and 9.26% stake rests with Chiratae Ventures.
Ratan Tata who had invested Rs 26.2 crore in the company back in 2017, saw his stake reduced to 0.48% stake after the fresh round in March. Binny Bansal still holds 0.35% equity in the company. Bollywood star and a long time friend of Mukesh Bansal, Hritik Roshan also holds shares worth Rs 14.13 crore in the Bengaluru-based firm.
Bansal has taken less time as compared to his peers in scaling the company to a valuation of over Rs 5,400 crore. Apart from core offerings around health and fitness, Curefit had also forayed into grocery with Whole.Fit. Entrackr had exclusively reported its debut in grocery in February.
Over the past few years, Curefit has introduced multiple services in a bid to become a ‘super-app’ centered around better health. Starting with gyms in 2016, it expanded to Eat.Fit for healthy eating, Mind.Fit for yoga and mental wellness and Care.Fit for primary healthcare.
A few months ago, the firm also launched fitness wear. The vision at Curefit seems to be clear: build an ecosystem of health, fitness and healthcare. Although the Covid-19 pandemic has put a brake on the growth of every kind of business including Curefit, Bansal and other stakeholders’ fortunes are set to grow whenever things return to normalcy. Meanwhile, Curefit has adapted to the current scenario by launching a host of online services — right from live workout sessions to online therapy, among others.
