Cure.fit acquires Seraniti

Health and Fitness startup CureFit has acquired integrated mental wellness platform Seraniti. CureFit has rebranded Seraniti clinics at Bengaluru and Pune as Mind.fit, which offers online, and offline yoga, meditation and therapy services.

Seraniti was founded in 2016 by mental health practitioner. It offers psychotherapy services through 15 in-house professionals. Its team assesses the users' requirement and matches them to the right therapist. Users can then book an appointment. Seraniti claims it undertakes about 500 sessions a month in Bengaluru and Pune.

The Seraniti app is no longer available for users. Seraniti customers will be transitioned to the Mind.fit fold and will have access to yoga and meditation centres and do-it-yourself tutorials. They can now book appointments though the Cure.fit app.

Mind.fit claims to be India’s largest yoga chain with a membership of about 11,000, conducting 160 classes a day across its over 70 centres. CureFit is backed by venture capital firms Accel Partners, Kalaari Capital and Chiratae Ventures, which was previously known as IDG Ventures India. It formally launched the flagship Cure.fit mobile app in May last year. 

Another offering is Cult.fit, which runs offline centres that offer equipment-less workouts including strength and conditioning exercises, spinning, boxing, mixed martial arts, zumba and yoga. Eat.fit is its subscription-based food delivery vertical while Mind.fit focuses on yoga and meditation. Its latest offering, Care.fit, offers a digital platform for doctors and health checkups.

PayPal to buy Simility

Digital Payments platform PayPal Holdings Inc. signed a deal to acquire Palo Alto based Simility Inc., fraud prevention and risk management platform, for $120 Million in cash. The acquisition will allow PayPal to roll out new fraud prevention features to merchants.

Features such as fraudulent payment activity prevention, risk management and transaction verification will soon be introduced on the merchant’s online dashboard. PayPal has been at the forefront of developing innovative fraud prevention and risk management solutions for nearly 20 years and now merchants will be able to configure those solutions to manage the unique complexities of their businesses.

Simility, which was founded in 2014, has raised more than $20 million till date from Accel Partners and California-based investors, including Trinity Ventures and The Valley Fund. It caters to clients in banking and financial services, online marketplaces and classifieds, payment services providers, and e-commerce among others.

PayPal, which had launched its domestic operations in India in November 2017, offers payments products to both consumers and businesses. It also made an investment in Noida-based digital retail payment platform Pine Labs in May this year in a $125 million round.

CureFit Healthcare acquires Fitness First

Healthcare and fitness start-up CureFit Healthcare Pvt. Ltd has bought Oaktree Capital backed fitness chain Fitness First to expand its presence in Delhi and enter the lucrative Mumbai market.

CureFit will retain the Fitness First brand and add 10 fitness centres to bring its overall centre count to 50 fitness outlets. The firm will sell food subscriptions and its products to users of Fitness First. CureFit currently operates in Bengaluru and NCR.

Fitness First is the latest acquisition for CureFit, which previously bought boutique fitness brands Cult and The Tribe, yoga chain a1000yoga as well as Bengaluru-based kitchen Kristys Kitchen to launch its food business. CureFit was founded in 2016 by Bansal, who was co-founder of fashion retailer Myntra, and Nagori, ex-chief business officer at Flipkart. Bansal and Nagori worked closely at Flipkart after the company bought Myntra in 2014.

CureFit was in talks to raise $75 million from new and existing investors to expand its fitness and food verticals and enter new businesses. The company has so far raised $55 million in equity and debt from Accel Partners, IDG Ventures, Kalaari Capital, UC-RNT Fund and others.

Quikr acquires Stayglad

Listings website Quikr India Pvt. Ltd has acquired on demand beauty services provider Stayglad for an undisclosed sum after the start-up failed to attract new investors and ran out of cash. Stayglad, owned by Glow Prime Technologies Pvt. Ltd, was in talks with Accel Partners and Matrix Partners to raise funds but the talks were unsuccessful, prompting the company to scout for a buyer.

This is Quikr third acquisition in the on-demand home beauty services space. In May, Quikr acquired Gurgaon based home beauty services provider Salosa for an undisclosed amount to bolster its presence in the segment. In July, Quikr rebranded Salosa as AtHomeDiva and launched a separate home beauty service under the QuikrServices vertical in August; the company acquired another home beauty service provider Zapluk.

Quikr had earlier committed an investment of Rs250 Crore to strengthen its home services vertical. On demand beauty is one of the fastest growing service categories. Stayglad was founded in May 2015. In June last year, the company raised an undisclosed amount in seed funding from Delhivery, and TracxnLabs. The company went on to raise an undisclosed amount in Series A funding round from Bessemer Venture Partners and former Chief Executive officer at Lakme Lever Pvt. Ltd.

In the home beauty segment, Quikr AtHomeDiva, currently operates in Bangalore, Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Gurgaon and Hyderabad, competes with BigStylist, Belita, VanityCube, MyGlam, and The Home Salon among others. The acquisition is part of Quikr verticalization drive where it is focusing on five key business segments – automobiles, real estate, jobs, services and customer to customer sales.

Olacabs to acquire TaxiForSure

Taxi aggregators are readying themselves to take on the global giant Uber, once the regulatory issues are cleared in India. Olacabs, the Indian startup supported by Japan Softbank’s is buying its rival TaxiForSure, signaling consolidation in the nascent taxi app market. Key investors in TaxiForSure include Accel partners and Qualcomm.

The deal, which is estimated to be worth around $200-250 Million, will be second largest deal in the customer internet space after Flipkart $370 Million acquisition of Myntra. It will make Olacabs the leader in taxi aggregator business in India valued at $2 Billion. Ola is likely to pay cash and also offer stock to acquire TaxiForSure. Apart from taking on the $40 billion Uber, the move is also aimed at lowering the cost.

Globally too taxi aggregators are in talks to form an international alliance against Uber, potentially linking up regional players including Olacabs, Singapore Grab Taxi, and San Francisco based Flywheel. Though, none of the Indian Taxi aggregator companies have started making profit yet, TaxiForSure, run by Bangalore based Senrendipity Infolabs, seems to be in urgent need for financial support.

Olacabs, cofounded by IIT Bombay alumnus Bhavish Aggarwal and his college mate Ankit Bhati, received $210 million in funding led by Japanese communications conglomerate Softbank in October. TaxiForSure had snagged $30 Million from Accel and Qualcomm, but Olacabs fundraising demonstrated that momentum had swung its way. IIM Ahmedabad graduates Raghunandan G and Aprameya Radhakrishna found TaxiForSure.

French BlaBlaCar enter in India

One of France biggest startups and amongst the world’s largest carpool companies wants to revolutionize the way Indians Travel. BlaBlaCar, the city-to-city ridesharing service available across Europe, Russia, and Turkey, has arrived in India on January 14, 2015. The company is opening its ninth office in the capital city and it had plans to expand into India, Southeast Asia, and Latin America.

As in its other 13 other markets in which over two million people use its service, BlaBlaCar lets drivers offers ride from one city to another, and share the cost with co-travelers who sign up for the journey making the trip more affordable than traveling separately. It has launched services in Delhi and Gurgaon on Wednesday. India is the first stop in Asia, for the 10-year-old company that has built an online community of 10 Million across 13 countries so far.

Last July, it received $100 Million in funding from a slew of investors including Accel Partners and Index Ventures, when it first announced its interest in emerging markets including India, Brazil, and Turkey. Unlike taxi aggregators who have been asked to register as radio taxi operators, carpooling services in India are not bound by regulation yet. Brazil Tripda, which is backed by German Incubator Rocket Internet, launched its Indian operations last November by offering ride sharing between cities. Meanwhile, a number of local players like RidingO, SmartMumbaikar, and ZingHopper, offer similar services in India.

BlaBlaCar, which draws its quirky name from one of the features that users display on their profile on the company’s platform, expects users to log in using their Facebook profile. They can often choose the driver they want to ride with based on profiles. In Spain, Poland, and France, BlaBlaCar charges an 11% commission on each ride per person. In India too, commuters will have to sign on through their Facebook profile, and book a ride with a driver they are likely to be comfortable with. While the service will be free for the first year, the company will later take a percentage out of every booking.