Curefit announces pay cuts, downsizes staff as its shuts operations in UAE and small town India

Health and fitness startup Curefit has announced cost cutting measures as offline-heavy businesses such as gyms and fitness centres have taken a huge hit during the current pandemic. 

Curefit has said that its founders Mukesh Bansal and Ankit Nagori will forego their salaries entirely, while the management team will take a 50% pay cut followed by the rest of the staff — depending on seniority — will take a reduction of 20-30%.   

The company has also shut down its operations in the UAE and small towns in India to further trim its costs.

“Given the current pandemic and restrictions across the country, our business is going through significant changes,” said a Curefit spokesperson. “The lockdown has affected all our business offerings and we do not see the situation improving for quite some time, considering the pandemic spread has affected all the markets we operate in.”

This comes just hours after a Reuters report said that Cure.fit has laid off around 800 of its staff and permanently closed many of its fitness centres across the country. Curefit did not reveal the number of employees impacted by the firing but said that they have downsized their employee base across markets where they have shut operations. 

This development comes just over a month after Curefit raked in Rs 832 crore in funding in a round led by Temasek. The coronavirus pandemic has forced several growth-stage startups to cut expenses even if they have recently raised funds. Some of the startups that have let go of its employees in the recent past include Swiggy, Meesho, Acko, TravelTriangle, among others. 

Cure.fit further said that it has created a Rs 2 crore emergency fund to support “affected employees in the coming months.”

As of February, Cure.Fit had around 200 fitness centres across seven cities and had just forayed into Dubai to find new avenues of revenue. However, with a nationwide lockdown, the company has shifted to ramping up its digital offerings over the last month or so — ranging from live workout sessions, to online health consultation and counselling. The firm has also started delivering essentials under its brand name Whole.fit.