COVID-19 impact | CureFit trims workforce, shuts down centres across India and UAE

Digital fitness and healthcare startup Cure Fit said that it has shut down its operations across small towns in India and the United Arab Emirates due to the ongoing lockdown caused by the COVID-19 outbreak.

While the founders have taken a 100 percent pay cut, the management team has taken a 50 percent pay cut followed by the rest of the staff, who have taken anywhere between 20 to 30 percent cuts depending on the seniority, the company said in the statement.

It added that around 10 percent of its trainers have been asked to leave and the remaining 90 percent have been put on a fixed plus variable model of payments.

The company said that these decisions were taken to ensure long-term viability of the business.

Reuters, which reported the development first, stated the company has fired more than 800 of its staff across the country.

Interestingly, Cure Fit had just raised Rs 832 crore in a funding round led by Temasek. It is backed by marquee investors like Chiratae Ventures, Accel Partners, Kalaari Capital among others. Started by ex-Flipkart top executive Ankit Nagori and Myntra founder Mukesh Bansal it runs its own chain of physical fitness centres named Cult.Fit, operates a cloud kitchen business under Eat.Fit and offers doctor consultations as well under Care.Fit.

Speaking with Moneycontrol last month, CureFit growth lead Naresh Krishnaswamy had said that the platform was seeing around 5 lakh sessions everyday through its video classes. Since the lockdown has come in effect, it has completely shut its physical gymnasiums and pushed its online classes aggressively. It has also been bringing in celebrity trainers and fitness enthusiasts to conduct classes online.

Krishnaswamy had said then that its trainers were mostly permanent staff and going forward could help them conduct these live sessions and, in some cases, conduct one on one training sessions as well. But given these weeks of lockdown, the company seems to have offloaded a chunk of its trainers across centres.

“All employees part of the downsizing have been provided with a significant severance package to help them with the current situation, including extended health insurance for them and their families,” said the CureFit spokesperson.

For CureFit subscribers, the company has extended 'pause' service on their memberships to enable them not to lose out on workout days because of the nationwide lockdown.

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