Written by : Arti Ghargi
January 22, 2024
In a significant development, Gaurav Gupta, cofounder and former executive at the food-delivery platform Zomato, has officially launched a health and wellness platform-Gabit.
The startup secured a substantial seed funding of $9.5 million last year, from notable investors including Norwest Venture Partners and angel investors such as Amazon Senior Vice President Amit Agarwal, Zomato cofounder and CEO Deepinder Goyal, Vikram Chopra, CEO of Cars24, and QED Innovation Labs led by Kunal Shah, founder of CRED.
The seed funding round also witnessed participation from other current and former Zomato executives, including the company's CFO Akshant Goyal and cofounder Mohit Gupta.
In September 2021, just two months after Zomato’s IPO launch Gaurav Gupta parted ways with the company. He had a remarkable six-year tenure with the Gurugram-based food-delivery giant. He joined Zomato in 2015. In 2018, he was elevated to the post of COO. Eventually, he was designated as cofounder in 2019.
Gupta, has joined hands with his wife Aparna Shahi to launch Gabit. Sharing the platform's vision in a LinkedIn post, he said that Gabit aims to provide a comprehensive range of products and services that encompass personalised nutrition and fitness plans, fitness wearables, nutritional products, skincare products, and various other healthtech offerings.
Describing Gabit as a one-stop platform for all health and wellness needs, Gupta emphasised the platform's commitment to delivering high-impact solutions supported by science and technology. He said, "We at Gabit are taking a holistic approach-combining the best of fitness, nutrition, sleep, mental wellness and skincare – towards health goals like weight management, staying fit, managing chronic conditions like diabetes and hypertension, acne control, healthy ageing, and more.”
Gupta underscored the interconnected nature of health and wellness in his post, stating, "For instance, for getting fit or healthy aging, you need to be active, eat better, control your stress, and manage your sleep well."
Gabit also collaborates with inhouse panel of experts including celebrity nutritionist, celebrity fitness coach, renowned dermatologist, and international experts. The platform will also use AI-enabled tools to help users build good habits. Gabit’s FitBot, an AI fitness coach, can count reps, calories and give posture scores while its SkinBot – can assess the quality of the user's skin.
Currently Gabit has a website and a functioning app, which feature customised offerings for users. According to Gupta, since the launch thousands of users have been active on Gabit, spanning across age categories from 18 to 70.
Source: Gabit
Post Covid-19 pandemic, the world has witnessed a trend of rising health awareness among people. As consumers have become health-conscious, several companies have shifted their focus towards providing wellness products/services to capture the growing market.
Even though India has several healthtech apps, Gabit will particularly look to compete with HealthifyMe. Founded in 2012, the app also helps users set their health goals, helps in weight-loss journey and offers customised nutrition plans curated by experts.
The fitness and wellness tracker app is backed by Khosla Ventures and Unilever Venture. Last year the startup raised $30 million in a Pre-Series D funding round to advance its artificial intelligence capabilities, acquiring talent and global expansion.
HealthifyMe is currently focusing on integrating AI into its daily offering with its chatbot Ria. The chatbot acts as a virtual nutritionist, powered by generative AI. It is also retrofitting its coach facing system with generative AI.
A pioneer in the segment, HealthifyMe says that it has over 35 million users spread across about 300 cities.
The College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) is an executive organization dedicated to serving senior digital health leaders. CHIME includes more than 5,000 members in 56 countries and two US territories and partners with over 150 healthcare IT businesses and professional services firms. CHIME enables its members and business partners to collaborate, exchange ideas, develop professionally and advocate the effective use of information management to improve the health and care throughout the communities they serve. CHIME's members are chief information officers (CIOs), chief medical information officers (CMIOs), chief nursing information officers (CNIOs), chief innovation officers (CIOs), chief digital officers (CDOs), and other senior healthcare leaders. The CHIME India Chapter became the first international chapter outside North America in 2016 and is now a community of over 70+ members in India. For more information, please visit www.chimecentral.org