Temasek is an investment company floated by the government of Singapore and the firm is now in talks to invest around $100 million in health and fitness startup Cure.fit. With this funding, the startup expects to be valued at $800 million post this Temasek fund raise, as per a Livemint report. Cure.fit had last raised funds around six months ago at a valuation of $575 million.
Cure.fit has been active in the healthcare, fitness and wellness space running gyms, serving out healthy food options and running mental wellness centres. Each of these is done under a different name. While the gyms are called Cure.fit, the food unit is called Eat.fit and the wellness centres, Mind.fit. There’s one more, Care-fit with which runs diagnostic centres. Cure.fit says it is clocking a revenue of around Rs 10 crore to Rs 15 crore per month from the eat-fit healthy food business alone.
The company plans to expand its presence geographically and the funds now being raised may be deployed in these efforts.
Neither Temasek nor the promoters of Cure.fit have confirmed or denied this report on the investment being made by the former.
Temasek Singapore has so far invested around $11 billion in Indian startups. The investor has emerged as a dependable source for later-stage investments and an alternative to the SoftBank Group of Japan. The focus areas for Temasek are financial services, technology, healthcare, infrastructure, retail and fast-moving consumer goods. The company looks for a consumption story built into these businesses for it to become attracted for making investments. At the present juncture, the ticket size Temasek is looking for is $75 million and above.
Of the other significant investments made by Temasek in India are $400 million in the National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF), a fund set up by the government of India to boost infrastructure financing in the country apart from stakes in AU Small Finance Bank Ltd, Ascendas India Logistics Programme, Adani Ports and Special Economic Zones Ltd
Some observers of the financial markets see a trend in this approach and feel it is a logical approach being followed by these investment companies. There are other sovereign funds and pension funds taking a closer look at the Indian market and they have no dearth of funds.