The concept of hustle culture is deeply ingrained in children today. Most of them after the age of 18, move away from their families and homes to pursue their studies or to take up work in their preferred fields. They deal with a lot of changes adjusting to a new life, new environment, and new schedule.
During these transitions, the most common factors that tend to take a back seat are their meals and health. They tend to skip meals and make do with food that might not be the most nutritious.
This could have long-term psychological and physical consequences on them, the most common being nutritional deficiency.
Vaibhav Makhija and Sayantani Mandal also noticed these changes in food habits among youngsters.
Makhija, CEO and co-founder of the company told Entrackr, “With the rise of food delivery platforms like Swiggy and Zomato people got hooked on eating cheap junk and processed foods…which led to nutritional deficiencies in people.”
The duo started What’s Up Wellness in 2020 to find a solution to these problems. The company aims to make wellness fun and frictionless for consumers with products that can be easily and quickly incorporated into their daily lives.
The company is aiming to solve health issues such as hair fall, sleep issues, joint pain, eye health, body stiffness, etc. which is caused due to imbalanced diets with its two main products: What’s Up Beauty Gummies and What’s Up Sleep Gummies.
What’s Up Beauty Gummies are strawberry flavored multivitamin gummy supplements with a blend of 13 superfoods targeting hair, skin, and nails. What’s Up Sleep Gummies are mango flavored sleep gummy supplements that also target nerve relaxation and muscle recovery.
The company plans on launching stress relief gummies by the end of the month among other products aiming to solve problems faced by both men and women in equal measure.
Exploring the topic of expansion of the company, Makhija said, “Right now we are 100% online, but we intend to start offline towards the end of this year.”
What’s Up Wellness sells its products on its platform and is available for purchase on Amazon, Flipkart, and Nykaa. The company is also working to go live with Blinkit and other quick commerce platforms.
The health and wellness company has approximately 7,000 transactions on its own websites and another 3,000 on Amazon. Repeat purchases account for approximately 35% of these transactions, they said. The platform now has over 40,000 users and is expected to reach 2 lakh users by the end of 2023.
The B2C company raised an undisclosed amount in its maiden angel round in December 2022. The fundraising round was led by Puneet Sehgal (ex-COO Hopscotch), Sahil Kukreja (Director, The Butternut Co.), Ritika Jaisinghani (Founder, Elaa), Maharshi Ganatra (Partner, MGA), and Ritesh Ritolia (MD & Partner, Boston Consulting Group).
The round also saw participation from the founders of other consumer brands such as Soumya Kant (Co-Founder, Clovia), Deep Bajaj and Mohit Bajaj (Co-Founders of Sirona Hygiene), and other investors.
The Gurgaon-based company recorded its revenue of Rs 1 crore last financial year and has a current run rate of Rs 50 lakh per month. The company has recorded a 5x growth in a year. Over the next six months, the company expects to increase its revenue to over Rs 12 crore.
India contributes approximately 3-4% of the $5 trillion wellness market by 2025. According to studies, the average Indian millennial spends around Rs 4000 each month on fitness and wellness. This amount is expected to increase as ticket sizes and the number of people in this bracket increase.
