Curefit co-founder Ankit Nagori may exit the company soon

Co-founder of health ecosystem startup Curefit Ankit Nagori is parting ways with the company. After differences over how the company should be run and its future strategy between him and Mukesh Bansal, Nagori is said to exit the company, say three people aware of the details. 

Currently, Nagori owns 7.63% in Curefit that is worth close to Rs 420 crore, per Fintrackr estimates.  

“The differences grew fast in the past couple of months and culminated into Nagori’s exit from the company,” said one of the sources requesting anonymity. “The contours of his exit have been finalized and he will soon be out of Curefit completely.”

In an emailed statement, however, Curefit has denied the complete exit of Nagori from Curefit.

The indication of Nagori’s exit from Curefit was given last month when the company announced to hive off its food vertical Eatfit as a separate entity from Curefit. According to sources, Nagori would own 70 to 80% stake in the healthy food platform. It’s worth noting that Eatfit downscaled its operation by 80-90% in the past six months.

In August, the firm had pulled the plug on Eatfit across 12 cities including Delhi (NCR), Mumbai and Chennai. The company is now operating the cloud kitchen vertical in Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Coimbatore only.

During the pre-Covid19 period, the Bengaluru-based venture used to run over 60 kitchens. “Now it’s kitchen numbers are close to a dozen,” added the second source, requesting anonymity.

Nagori’s complete exit from Curefit could also be noticed by taking a look at the company’s regulatory filings. Curefit has converted 14,34,479 preferential shares held by Ankit Nagori into Class A equity shares.

After receipt of conversion request, the board at Curefit has consented conversion of all of his convertible preferential shareholdings which include 9,15,218 Series BI CCPS; 3,55,673 ; Series C1-Al CCPS and 2,15,937 Series C2-AI into 14,34,479 Class A Equity shares. These are equity shares with preferential rights which will be equivalent to 1,59,96,979 ordinary equity shares upon conversion.

Importantly, the company’s board of directors had consented to such conversion for only Nagori and no other shareholders of such class of preference shares were allotted equity capital against their holdings.The conversion will likely facilitate Nagori’s exit as the freshly issued equity shares will not carry restrictions regarding liquidation preferences.

“This immediate change in the capital structure points to a complete exit of Nagori from the company,” said the above-quoted person. 

A Curefit spokesperson said that Nagori’s increased ownership in Eatfit is part of an equity swap which is due to a spin-off of the food business. “Ankit Nagori is not exiting Curefit. He will continue to be on the board of Curefit and will also have a stake in Curefit and will work with Mukesh Bansal on strategic matters,” said the spokesperson in response to Entrackr’s detailed questionnaire. 

Accel has declined to offer comment for the story. Other parties involved including Curefit’s investors Kalaari Capital and Chiratae along with both co-founders Bansal and Nagori did not respond to Entrackr’s queries. We will update the story in case they respond.

Launched in 2016, Curefit has scaled up quickly with a combination of fitness, food, healthcare and accessories verticals. So far, it raised over Rs 2,500 crore across four institutional rounds. In March, the company had scooped up Rs 832 crore in a round led by Temasek. 

At present, its valuation stood at Rs 5,490 crore or $732 million. Bansal holds 12.37% worth stake in Curefit, worth north of Rs 680 crore.