![Cult.fit provides fitness-related services under an umbrella of online and offline services. [Representative image]](https://images.moneycontrol.com/static-mcnews/2022/02/Gym-Cult-Fit.jpg?impolicy=website&width=350&height=195)
Tata-backed fitness chain Cult.fit plans to go public in the next 12-18 months, senior executives of the company told Moneycontrol, though they could not disclose the size of the issue.
The Mukesh-Bansal led chain now essentially runs two businesses– fitness and e-commerce. During the pre-Covid days, the startup was running 250 centres. The business has now grown to 500 centres across 40 cities.
“The way we run these centres now is very different. Earlier, all the centres were owned 100 percent by us, which means everybody from the trainers to the centre managers to the housekeeping staff were on our payroll. But now we have multiple models. We own about 30- 35 percent of the centres. Rest works on a franchise model,” said Naresh Krishnaswamy, Business Head at Cult.fit.
The Bengaluru-based company has also grown its revenues by 50 percent from the pre-pandemic days and are now operationally profitable. Krishnaswamy added that on the average, a fitness centre sees around 250-300 footfalls everyday. Online classes contribute to 10 percent of the overall business.
CultFit had acquired Fitso from Zomato last year and also Gold’s Gym franchise rights in India.
The company has also expanded its direct-to-consumer (D2C) selling business. It only sold apparels in the fitness category before Covid and now it includes products like treadmills, spin bikes, cycles and sportswear. This business now contributes one-third of the total revenue, said Krishnaswamy.
“The fundamentals of any IPO is about the product, whether it be generating profit, cash flow, positive business proceeds. So if that is done, the valuation is not an issue," Bishnu Hazari, head of finance at CultFit, said about the IPO.
Krishnaswamy said that they are now focused to have a robust stock after listing as many have failed to retain their stock prices even after blockbuster openings. “We really want to focus on the process, regardless of whether markets go down or not, we will take a 5-10 year timeframe,” he said.
Founded in 2016 by Mukesh Bansal and Ankit Nagori, CureFit which rebranded to Cult.fit provides fitness-related services through both online and offline channels. These primarily include offline group workouts at Cult.fit centres and other gym or equipment-based workouts at partner gyms and fitness centres apart from online classes.
During the pandemic, CultFit was majorly hit as many centres closed and they immediately shifted to online virtual classes. The startup even laid off employees but then got backed by Tata Digital and Bansal joined Tata in an executive role. Nagori, on the other hand, now runs a separate cloud-kitchen platform Curefoods.
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