HealthifyMe is an Indian digital health and wellness company, which provides an app with services such as

calorie The calorie is a unit of energy that originated from the caloric theory of heat. The large calorie, food calorie, dietary calorie, kilocalorie, or kilogram calorie is defined as the amount of heat needed to raise the temperature of one liter o ...

tracking and advice on

nutrition Nutrition is the biochemistry, biochemical and physiology, physiological process by which an organism uses food and water to support its life. The intake of these substances provides organisms with nutrients (divided into Macronutrient, macro- ...

and fitness. It is available on the Android and

iOS Ios, Io or Nio (, ; ; locally Nios, Νιός) is a Greek island in the Cyclades group in the Aegean Sea. Ios is a hilly island with cliffs down to the sea on most sides. It is situated halfway between Naxos and Santorini. It is about long an ...

platforms, and can be used with

wearable technology Wearable technology is any technology that is designed to be used while worn. Common types of wearable technology include smartwatches, fitness trackers, and smartglasses. Wearable electronic devices are often close to or on the surface of the s ...

such as

activity tracker A fitness tracker or activity tracker is an electronic device or app that measures and collects data about an individual's movements and physical responses in order to monitor and improve the individual's health, fitness, or psychological wellne ...

s. The company was founded by Tushar Vashisht, Mathew Cherian and Sachin Shenoy in 2012.

History

Early years

HealthifyMe was founded in 2012 by the founder and CEO Tushar Vashisht and Mathew Cherian, initially putting together an Excel sheet of foods and their calorie values and then build a software platform around it. The first version of the software was released in 2012. A year after its foundation, Sachin Shenoy joined the company as head of engineering. The company launched an Android app in 2013, with an iOS app released shortly afterwards. The Android app earned

Google Play Store Google Play, also known as the Google Play Store, Play Store, or sometimes the Android Store (and was formerly Android Market), is a digital distribution service operated and developed by Google. It serves as the official app store for certifie ...

's "Top Developer" badge in 2015, and was named amongst the "Best Apps of 2015".

Funding and recognition

In May 2015, the company launched a campaign, HealthifyIndia, in collaboration with Godrej

Nature's Basket Nature's Basket is an Indian grocery delivery chain of retail stores focused in gourmet food. It has a range of organic food, imported ingredients and exotic foods. The company is headquartered in Mumbai, India and has multiple stores in cit ...

Manipal Hospitals Manipal Health Enterprises, commonly known as Manipal Hospitals, is an Indian for-profit private hospital network headquartered in Bangalore, Karnataka. The hospitals trace their origins to the Kasturba Medical College, founded by T. M. A. P ...

, Medanta and Apollo Centre, to promote healthy living amongst Indians and create awareness of lifestyle disorders. It was reported that HealthifyMe's website had become the most visited health website in India, with 40 lakh visitors. In May 2015, electronics manufacturer

Micromax Micromax (Scott Wright) is a fictional character, a mutant superhero appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Publication history Micromax was created by Alan Davis and first appeared in ''Excalibur'' #44 (Dec. 1991). Fic ...

invested an undisclosed amount in HealthifyMe. On 17 June 2015, it was announced that HealthifyMe closed its pre-Series A round with an undisclosed amount from a group of individual investors. It then raised $6 million as a part of their Series-A round in April 2016 from

IDG Ventures IDG Ventures is a global family of venture funds with approximately $3.6 billion under management. All of the funds were originally sole-source-funded by International Data Group. The first fund was created by IDG in 1996 and was located in San ...

, Inventus Capital Partners & Blume Ventures. The app continued to be named among "Best Apps - Made in India" in 2016 and 2017. In December 2017, the company received the Google Play "Editor's Choice" award in the Health & Fitness category. In November 2024, the company closed a $45 million financing round to expand into the United States.

Launch of AI nutritionist 'Ria'

In late-2017, HealthifyMe launched "Ria", an AI nutritionist which learned from 10 million messages and over 200 million food and workout logs. Ria was announced as the world's first AI-powered virtual nutritionist. By early-2018, the company had more than one million monthly active users. In February 2018, HealthifyMe raised a Series B funding round of US$12 million led by Sistema Asia Fund and Samsung's AI focussed fund - NEXT (their first investment in India). Atlas Asset Management (Singapore), Dream Incubator (Japan) and existing investors (

, Inventus Capital Partners & Blume Ventures, NB Ventures) also participated in the funding round.

Foray into overseas markets

In November 2018, HealthifyMe announced that it has raised US$6 million from Innoven Capital and existing investors. It also expanded its operations to Malaysia, having mapped over 900 South East Asian foods, and obtained more than 15,000 subscribers within the first month. The company also announced its plans of expanding to Singapore, Indonesia and the Middle East over the next two quarters. The company expanded its operations to Singapore and Brunei in the fourth quarter.

Growth and feature launches

In February 2019, it was reported that HealthifyMe had more than 8 million users across all markets. Later in 2019, the company launched "Ria 2.0", including the feature, "Snap", using which users can take a picture of their food and the AI can identify the dish and log the calories, provided the dish is among the 10,000 dishes tracked by it. It also launched "Smart Plans" in which users get a customised diet plan recommendation from Ria. In January 2020, the company partnered with Swiggy enabling users to order healthy foods from nearby restaurants picked by its nutritionists. In February 2020, the company reported that its revenue had reached 100 crore and active user base doubled to 16 million in a year. The company announced its entry into

mental wellness Mental health is often mistakenly equated with the absence of mental illness. However, mental health refers to a person's overall emotional, psychological, and social well-being. It influences how individuals think, feel, and behave, and how t ...

segment, with the introduction of "HealthifySense", allowing users the access to counselling. It also announced a pilot with Fitternity to provide access to gyms and fitness studios as well a grocery ordering feature in partnership with Milkbasket in select locations.

Product

HealthifyMe operates on a

freemium Freemium, a portmanteau of the words "free" and "premium", is a pricing strategy by which a basic product or service is provided free of charge, but money (a premium) is charged for additional features, services, or virtual (online) or physical ( ...

model, providing nutritional and fitness advice from nutritionists and fitness coaches to users with premium subscription. The company claims to have access to the world's first and largest Indian food database. It has developed a

calorie counter The calorie is a unit of energy that originated from the caloric theory of heat. The large calorie, food calorie, dietary calorie, kilocalorie, or kilogram calorie is defined as the amount of heat needed to raise the temperature of one liter of w ...

for regional foods and an exercise tracker for logging in physical activities. It also shows the count of proteins, carbohydrates, fats and fibre. The AI-driven digital nutritionist Ria can create personalised diet plans and workout routines. Ria reportedly handles 80% of user queries, and was integrated as an

Alexa Alexa may refer to: Technology *Amazon Alexa, a virtual assistant developed by Amazon * Alexa Internet, a defunct website ranking and traffic analysis service * Alexa Fluor, a family of fluorescent dyes * Arri Alexa, a digital motion picture ca ...

skill for

Amazon Echo Amazon Echo, often shortened to Echo, is a brand of smart speakers developed by Amazon (company), Amazon. Echo devices connect to the voice-controlled Virtual assistant, intelligent personal assistant service. ''Amazon Alexa, Alexa'', which resp ...

speakers and Alexa built-in devices in 2019.

Partnerships

HealthifyMe also works in partnership with various medical institutions such as Medanta,

Apollo Hospitals Apollo Hospitals Enterprise Limited is an Indian multinational healthcare group headquartered in Chennai. It is the largest for-profit private hospital network in India, with a network of 71 owned and managed hospitals. Along with the eponym ...

and

, with the aim to treat and prevent clinical obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular problems and other lifestyle diseases.

References

External links

*{{URL, www.healthifyme.com, Official site Health software Activity trackers IOS software Android (operating system) software Cross-platform mobile software Fitness apps