Thirty-nine-year-old Avneet Bhatia is a true believer in natural healing. Hailing from an army family, fitness and sports were deep-rooted in the SOM, IIT Bombay alumnus.
At a certain stage in her life, Avneet adopted yoga and Ayurveda and found herself recovered from her ailments and completely transformed. She wanted to bring these benefits of natural therapies to more people, and eventually, she pursued a course for a year.
Moreover, as the COVID-19 pandemic increased awareness around preventive health and alternative medicine, Avneet decided to launch — a unique health ecosystem app — in December 2021.
“This initiative is like giving back to society. It can heal everybody, and more people find it accessible to find a brand they can trust to heal them naturally,” Avneet tells YourStory.
What does the startup provide?
Mumbai-headquartered NatureFit is an app-based digital platform that guides users towards natural therapies. One can opt from 15 therapies available, including Ayurveda, Homeopathy, Yoga, Dieticians, Physiotherapy, and Psychology, among others. Avneet says, these therapies come with no flyers or other binders suggesting no side effects.
The platform also has free health tools such as BMI Calculator, stress level, and Prakruti analysis, which tracks users’ sleep cycle, water intake, meals, exercise, and help them better know their health conditions.
Users can also consult a doctor or a therapist by booking an appointment through the platform and can share their initial health summary from the NatureFit tools.
Through its community platform Fitbook, NatureFit connects users with other nature cure lovers and health-conscious people in a fun and engaging way.
“Users can create groups, share their views, take up challenges, and track their progress through the app’s self-motivating health and progress tracking features,” Avneet says.
Besides, NatureFit also provides 100 percent natural and herbal products in healthcare, food, grocery, beauty, and baby care segments.
Speaking about the platform Avneet says, “We are on a mission to make quality, complementary, and alternative therapies accessible for all our citizens. We believe in empowering our users with the most accurate, comprehensive, and curated information and care, enabling them to make better healthcare decisions.”
Business model
The preventive healthcare startup — available on Android and website — has 3,000 doctors, 7,000 app installs and over 75 brands on its platform.
NatureFit will soon launch the iOS version of the app. As part of this launch, NatureFit is offering its users one-time free consultation with doctors and practitioners till April 1.
From April onwards, the startup will also charge a subscription fee to its doctors to use the platform. At present, it is free for all doctors.
“We also involve doctors for corporate webinars, helping them increase their digital presence increase and get more patients,” adds Avneet.
The startup also provides B2B corporate wellness plans and has onboarded two clients with two to three more in the pipeline.
NatureFit’s B2C ecommerce platform has completed around 100 orders, clocking revenue of Rs 50,000. In the last two months, the startup has generated a revenue of Rs 15 lakh.
Market size and future plans
In the last few years, the Ayurveda, Yoga, Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha, and Homoeopathy (AYUSH) ministry has been seeing good growth. At present, over 7.7 lakh registered AYUSH doctors practice in India.
According to the Research and Information System for Developing Countries (RIS), its market size has grown 17 percent in 2014-20. Despite the slump in economic activity due to the pandemic in 2020, the industry is projected to reach $20.6 billion in 2021 and $23.3 billion in 2022.
In the context of COVID-19, the market for alternative medicines like Ayurveda saw demand rising for various Ayurvedic products to boost immunity.
Avneet says, “The interest in these products was fueled by the recommendations from the Ministry of AYUSH to fight COVID-19. AYUSH signifies the combination of an alternative system of medicine, which was earlier known as the Indian System of Medicine.”
Bootstrapped with nearly Rs 90 lakh, the healthcare startup aims to reach 30,000 doctors in the next two years. NatureFit is targeting one lakh app installs and plans to onboard 300 brands by the end of 2022.
