With a surge in the number of gym-goers, the fitness industry in India is all set to become a $24 billion franchise. Bangaloreans Amaresh Ojha (32) and Ajay Pandey (34) aim to grab a pie in this burgeoning industry with their latest venture, Gympik.com, an online fitness and wellness company that aims to organise this industry by creating an exclusive network of fitness and wellness professionals.
An IIM Bangalore graduate of the 2013 batch, Amaresh worked with Sun Microsystems, CISCO, Intuit and Bluestone after completing engineering from VTU, Bangalore. He founded Gympik with Ajay after his stint at IIM-B. Ajay worked in a sales and marketing capacity with IBM, Keane and Torry Harris following his Masters from Symbiosis Pune before founding Gympik.
Founded on December 11, 2012, Gympik has 20 employees today. It took six months to create a minimum viable product after an epiphany during the duo’s workout at the gym. It so happened that a common friend of theirs was looking for a personal trainer and it dawned on them that although there were a lot of outlets to find restaurants, cars, and so on, there was none in the fitness space.
“We have listed over 3,000 trainers and 2,000 fitness centres that focus on areas like Zumba, Physiotherapy, Aerobics, Gym, etc. Gympik’s website allows users to log their daily exercise and diet intake along with information on various fitness metrics like BMI and also provides tips on healthy living,” adds Amaresh. Gympik gives a detailed description of each fitness centre with HD images, 360 panaromic views, user reviews and user ratings. Its ‘Centres near me’ feature shows fitness centres near the user.
A free service, Gympik aims to launch new features like personalised fitness packages for users and a mobile app to track one’s activities. They aim to make money by providing B2B cloud-based software for fitness centres, providing low calorie foods, helping in recruitment of trainers, conducting sports-related events and providing users with fitness packages.
A user can visit the website, look for a centre, get in touch with them directly or use Gympik to avail free trials. With more than 1,000 visitors a day, Gympik considers Gymchalo.com and Fitternity.com as its competitors although they believe they are very different from them.
Gympik raised its first round of funding from Capvent’s managing partners, Tom Clausen and Rohan Ajila, as well as from Haldyn Glass. Healthcare accelerator Healthstart also participated in this round. The fund received was $135,000 and they are in talks with potential investors to raise their second round of funding. Started with an initial modest funding of `15 lakh, they now operate in Bangalore, Delhi NCR and Mumbai. “We want people to think of Gympik when they think about fitness or wellness,” adds Ajay.
With a surge in the number of gym-goers, the fitness industry in India is all set to become a $24 billion franchise. Bangaloreans Amaresh Ojha (32) and Ajay Pandey (34) aim to grab a pie in this burgeoning industry with their latest venture, Gympik.com, an online fitness and wellness company that aims to organise this industry by creating an exclusive network of fitness and wellness professionals.
An IIM Bangalore graduate of the 2013 batch, Amaresh worked with Sun Microsystems, CISCO, Intuit and Bluestone after completing engineering from VTU, Bangalore. He founded Gympik with Ajay after his stint at IIM-B. Ajay worked in a sales and marketing capacity with IBM, Keane and Torry Harris following his Masters from Symbiosis Pune before founding Gympik.
Founded on December 11, 2012, Gympik has 20 employees today. It took six months to create a minimum viable product after an epiphany during the duo’s workout at the gym. It so happened that a common friend of theirs was looking for a personal trainer and it dawned on them that although there were a lot of outlets to find restaurants, cars, and so on, there was none in the fitness space.
“We have listed over 3,000 trainers and 2,000 fitness centres that focus on areas like Zumba, Physiotherapy, Aerobics, Gym, etc. Gympik’s website allows users to log their daily exercise and diet intake along with information on various fitness metrics like BMI and also provides tips on healthy living,” adds Amaresh. Gympik gives a detailed description of each fitness centre with HD images, 360 panaromic views, user reviews and user ratings. Its ‘Centres near me’ feature shows fitness centres near the user.
A free service, Gympik aims to launch new features like personalised fitness packages for users and a mobile app to track one’s activities. They aim to make money by providing B2B cloud-based software for fitness centres, providing low calorie foods, helping in recruitment of trainers, conducting sports-related events and providing users with fitness packages.
A user can visit the website, look for a centre, get in touch with them directly or use Gympik to avail free trials. With more than 1,000 visitors a day, Gympik considers Gymchalo.com and Fitternity.com as its competitors although they believe they are very different from them.
Gympik raised its first round of funding from Capvent’s managing partners, Tom Clausen and Rohan Ajila, as well as from Haldyn Glass. Healthcare accelerator Healthstart also participated in this round. The fund received was $135,000 and they are in talks with potential investors to raise their second round of funding. Started with an initial modest funding of `15 lakh, they now operate in Bangalore, Delhi NCR and Mumbai. “We want people to think of Gympik when they think about fitness or wellness,” adds Ajay.
— mathew.maniamkot@gmail.com
