HealthifyMe announces online marketplace, expansion plans and Ria 2.0

At the company's annual event, HealthifyMe announced an upgrade to its AI-powered virtual nutritionist, expansion plans, and its own online marketplace. 

At HealthifyMe's annual event Ignite, the health and fitness startup announced plans of expansion into SouthEast Asia and launched its curated online foods marketplace EatBetter.

It also announced that it raised $6 million from existing investors and InnoVen Capital as an extension to the $12 million raised earlier this year to fund the new initiatives.

The company claims that the marketplace EatBetter will specialise in healthy wholesome food products, marking its expansion beyond nutrition and training services.

In a statement, HealthifyMe announced that the marketplace will offer a product catalogue curated by its team of elite nutritionists, and is intended to handhold users through their weight loss and fitness journeys. Products include health bars, breakfast cereals, cookies, roasted snacks, beverages, natural protein supplements, super seeds, dry fruits and trail mixes, all priced between Rs 70 and Rs 500. It already has over 500 SKUs (Stock Keeping Unit), and the company plans to expand this to more than 1,000 in the next 12 months.

“Over 8 million users from across more than 200 cities log their food intake on our app, making us the largest repository of food habits and nutritional requirements of Indians. With EatBetter deeply integrated with the rest of our product, we can seamlessly steer the consumer to make the right food choices on an everyday basis, helping them stay healthy,” said Tushar Vashisht, Co-founder and CEO of HealthifyMe.

It also announced its plans of expanding into South-East Asia. The company has already launched its services in Malaysia. Now, it plans to expand to Singapore, Indonesia, and the Middle East in the next two quarters.

HealthifyMe claims that it has built a library of over 900 SouthEast Asian local foods with accurate mapping of protein, fibre, carbohydrate and calorie. It has also hired a team of local nutritionists and fitness coaches, who will develop personalised diets and fitness plans for its users in SouthEast Asian.

“Our foray into Southeast Asia is an effort to offer a highly localised and curated experience to users there, offering the same level of depth in terms of food library, quality of coaches and technology support that our users in India enjoy. We are overwhelmed with the reception we have received in the country. We will enter more markets soon”, added Tushar.

The company also unveiled the new avatar of Ria, its AI-powered virtual nutritionist. In addition to listening and reading, Ria 2.0 can now see and identify healthy and unhealthy foods from menu cards, phone screens and entire plates of food.

HealthifyMe also announced the launch of smart diet plans starting at Rs 299 per month powered by Ria. The company added that these plans have been built from the learnings obtained from the 3.5 lakh meals designed by its coaches since its inception.