Mukesh Bansal named Cultfit executive chairman, Naresh Krishnaswamy made CEO

Cultfit’s new organisational structure will mean that Mukesh Bansal can now spend more time scaling his new company.

Mukesh Bansal, who was earlier CEO of Cultfit, has now become the executive chairman of the company. Naresh Krishnaswamy, earlier the head of fitness services, has been named his replacement and is now the chief executive of the Bengaluru-based company.

These developments come months after Moneycontrol repored that Bansal was working on his new premium fashion venture and was lining up $50 million from Peak XV and Accel. Bansal is building his new company with Zomato co-founder Mohit Gupta. The startup will cater to the premium fashion space aimed at Gen Z, an increasingly attractive segment for e-commerce players. Bansal also founded Myntra, a fashion platform now owned by Walmart.

Cultfit’s new organisational structure will mean that Bansal can now spend more time scaling his new company.

A company spokesperson confirmed the developments to Moneycontrol.

Krishnaswamy’s LinkedIn update revealed that he has been CEO of the fitness startup since October 2023. He’s an alumnus of IIT Madras and IIM Calcutta. He previously worked with Bansal at Myntra for nearly six years. In his last role, Krishnaswamy was the chief revenue officer of Myntra. The Economic Times first reported the development.

The top deck changes come months after the Zomato-backed unicorn let go of around 120-150 employees in a cost-cutting drive, mostly impacting mid to senior-level employees. The move was to lower cash burn and be IPO ready in the next 2-3 years.

The startup, which counts Tata Digital and Zomato as investors, currently has a cash burn of around Rs 15 crore and wants to reduce it to around Rs 10 crore, sources had previously told Moneycontrol.

Founded by Bansal and Ankit Nagori in 2016, Cult.fit has raised over $650 million from investors like Accel, Temasek, Chiratae, Kalaari Capital, and several others. Flipkart's Binny Bansal and actor Hrithik Roshan are among its angel investors, Tracxn, a private markets data provider, showed.