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.

Myntra acquires Witworks

Myntra has bought Bengaluru based startup Witworks, a maker of wearable devices, for an undisclosed amount, as the Flipkart owned online fashion retail firm looks to diversify and launch new categories, even as it invests heavily on newer technologies such as Artificial Intelligence.

The latest acquisition effectively allows Myntra to enter the wearable business, even as the retailer is looking to go beyond core fashion and grow sales in categories such as personal care, jewelry and home accessories. In the past five years, Myntra has made at least half a dozen acquisitions, most notably that of smaller rival Jabong, which it bought as part of a cut-price deal of $70 million.

The latest acquisition is an acqui-hire of sorts for Myntra, with the entire team of Witworks being absorbed into Myntra Innovation Labs. In 2016, Witworks launched its flagship device, Blink Watch, which runs on a voice-based platform. Myntra said the latest acquisition will allow the retailer to develop wearable products for its in-house brands.

Myntra has a number of in-house brands or private labels, such as Roadster, Dressberry, Anouk and actor Hrithik Roshan’s HRX brand. Myntra has switched its focus to using its resources to expanding sales faster from trying to turn profitable, while also launching a digital TV channel called Myntra TV on YouTube.

Boomtrain acquires Nudgespot

Boomtrain, an artificial intelligence based marketing platform has acquired Nudgespot, a Bengaluru based messaging platform founded by Myntra co-founders for an undisclosed sum. Both firms had partnered nine months ago to build a product that helps enterprises communicate better with their customers and visitors on website and mobile apps.

The acquisition of Nudgespot will accelerate Boomtrain strategy to enable AI powered communications between businesses and their customers. This is the first productized messaging application that will be fully integrated into a marketing suite. This gives marketers the ability to incorporate multi-channel chat functionally, combined with AI platform, to facilitate personalized, scalable conversations with their customers.

Nudgespot and Boomtrain are pushing the envelope when it comes to bi-directional messaging technologies. Teaming up with Boomtrain will continue to extend offering to more businesses in need of advanced, easy to use B2C messaging solutions. With the addition of Nudgespot, Boomtrain significantly expands its APAC business. Together Boomtrain and Nudgespot will have 70 people in offices located in San Francisco and Bangalore and will continue to expand its footprint globally.

Flipkart’s Myntra acquires Jabong

Flipkart Ltd has acquired Jabong through its unit Myntra in a cut-price deal that values the online fashion store at $70 Million, moving to preserve its position as India’s No 1 e-commerce marketplace in the face of an onslaught by Amazon India. Jabong had been valued at $508 Million in 2013.

For Flipkart – Myntra, the acquisition of Jabong will boost sales at a time when Flipkart is struggling to revive growth and struggling to protect its leadership in a market where Amazon has made rapid strides. Jabong offers more than 1500 international high street brands, sports labels, Indian ethnic and designer labels and over 15,000 styles from more than 1000 sellers.

In September 2014, German investor Rocket Internet merged Jabong with four other online fashion retailers in Latin America, Russia, the Middle East, South East Asia and Australia to create GFG. GFG, which is jointly owned by Rocket Internet and AB Kinnevik, houses the German e-commerce company’s fashion businesses from emerging countries, including Jabong, Latin America Dafiti, Russia Lamoda, Namshi in the Middle East and Zalora in South East Asia and Australia.

Earlier this month, Jabong expedited its sale process as Kinnevik and Rocket Internet were reluctant to pump more capital into the company in a gloomy e-commerce market. Jabong, which matched larger rival Myntra in sales until early 2014, has ceded market share since then, as Myntra parent Flipkart spent lavishly on advertising and discounts to lure customers.

Aditya Birla Fashion Acquires Forever 21

In a $26 Million dollar transaction, Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail has become the joint venture partner of US fast fashion major, Forever 21, replacing DLF Brands. The company is acquiring Forever 21 exclusive offline and online rights in the country, including its existing store network.

The apparel company, which currently has 12 stores across Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru, had been dissatisfied with the pace of growth and consequently opted to team up with ABFRL. The Company had originally planned for 50 stores in five years, in addition to Chandigarh; the US firm is planning stores in other Tier II cities such as Coimbatore and Surat.

While the US firm also has its own e-commerce platform, it currently sells its clothes and accessories through the fashion portal Myntra. The JV between Forever 21 and DLF brands was pitching perfect. Forever 21 was to occupy space at a competitive rent in DLF own malls. But over a period of time, it turned out that DLF malls were not always the most lucrative shopping destinations.

That meant Forever 21 needed to have a different expansion plan, given that competing brands like H&M and GAP are aggressively multiplying store presence. This is the third major brand that DLF Brands has let go. Others include Mango and Sephora. At the moment Mothercare, Sunglass Hut and Claires are the prominent international brands that DLF still has under its umbrella.

Myntra Buys app developer Native5

Online fashion e-tailer Myntra has acquired Bengaluru based mobile application development platform Native5, a move that goes with its strategy to shift entirely to the mobile platform. Native5 has developed a cloud platform to create and distribute mobile apps across smart phones, tablets and desktops.

Flipkart and Myntra had recently closed down their websites, with the aim of focusing more resources on their mobile apps. There is also speculation that they may close down their desktop websites in the future and go mobile app only, considering they are getting a lot of traction on their apps.

Myntra recently hosted an open Mobile Hack Day’ and had about 160 Internal and External participants from various companies developing hacks around their mobile app. The winning hacks included chat based commerce, real time chat application to buy with friends, an augmented reality shooting game and an app that links all other apps. This shows that Myntra is serious about its ‘app only’ strategy and is looking at all possible angles to provide a better and more complete end to end experience.

Native5 was incubated at Microsoft Accelerator in 2013 and it was a part of the Nasscom 10,000 startup programme the same year. The venture was one of the finalists of Qualcomm QPrize in 2012. Previously, in 2012, Myntra acquired Exclusively, which had a private label brand, and in 2013, it acquired Fitiquette that developed an in-store dressing room experience akin to a virtual fitting room for shoppers to try on clothes online.

Flipkart acquires AdIQuity

Indian E-commerce giant made its first acquisition of the year; acquired Bengaluru based AdIQuity, a global mobile ad network enabling app developers and mobile publisher’s revenues from their mobile inventory. AdIQuity is backed by VC’s like Sequoia Capital and has raised $15 Million across two rounds in 2006 and 2008.

Founded by IITian Anurag Dod, AdIQuity also facilitates ad agencies, ad networks, DSPs and other media buyers to acquire global mobile traffic. The nine year old venture claims to have 150 Million monthly active users in its network spread across 200 countries generating 25 Billion ad impressions every month. The country’s most valuable startup, valued at $11 Billion is seeking to expand its presence and capabilities by the inorganic way this year. The AdIQuity acquisition will enable.

Flipkart to boost its external marketing capabilities as it aims to diversify into online advertising and brand consulting for vendors. The additional revenues from these verticals would help Flipkart in becoming profitable prior to a listing. Having kicked off the acquisitions, it would be worth looking at the newer capabilities the company would be looking at. Last year, to strengthen its fashion vertical it bought out Myntra in one of the largest deals in the startup space.

Recently, Snapdeal acquired premium and luxury fashion retailer, Exclusively.com and Wishpicker.com, an online gift recommendation portal. While Amazon picked up a minority stake in Gift card Technology and retail firm, QwikCilver Solutions.

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.