Obino Ups The Digital Health Coaching Game; Acquires Fitard, A Gamified Fitness App

Mumbai-based Manna Healthcare Pvt Ltd, the company behind health & weight loss coaching app Obino, today announced the acquisition of Fitard, a rewards-based fitness mobile app startup also located in Mumbai. This acquistion disrupts the health and weight loss industry by placing greater emphasis on user experience and tighter product-market fit, in place of the typical route of customer acquistion in the sector through deeper discounts and arbitary pricing models with no focus on health outcomes.

Obino’s users are currently able to track their daily steps & food intake as well as be coached by experts in a high-touch, high-retention model based on giving strong metric-based health outcomes. With the competencies brought in by the Fitard team, they will soon join a gamified ecosystem that recognizes and rewards their health and fitness initiatives. Obino intends to tap the latent power of successful users to serve as points of inspiration & motivation for other users, therefore turning fitness into a fun-based learning experience and making it a more inclusive and community driven experience.

Commenting on the acquisition, Ritu Soni Srivastava, Founder & CEO of Obino, said: “At Obino, we focus on motivation as the cornerstone to a fitter & healthier life. The philosophy of Fitard was completely in line with our own, of owning the health and weight loss journey, right from providing not just the tools and the expertise but also the motivation. What we want to establish with this move is that losing weight and getting fitter doesn’t have to be a hard, uphill task full of sacrifices but a positive, life-affirming, transformational journey of becoming the person you always dreamed of being…both physically and mentally. We firmly believe that anyone at any time can choose to begin again. And we want to help them achieve that.”

Obino latest move of acquiring Fitard, is in line with its strategy to remain lean and agile in India’s competitive fitness and health industry by laying emphasis on a delightful user experience resulting in rave reviews and best-in-industry retention metrics. It is this laser sharp focus that makes Obino, the only Indian partner of choice for mega-brands like Samsung to power their wearables as well as for home-grown giants like Intex Smartphones for their in-built health app offerings on their handsets.

Ritu further added, “We want to ensure every element of our app has something that is useful and of real, tangible value to our user. Providing motivation through recognition of efforts and social gratification is yet another way to ensure that we help our users celebrate their achievements, no matter how big or small while keeping them motivated to stay on their custom designed health programs. Our strategy has been and always will be to ensure customer delight, the scale achieved is just another happy outcome!”

Obino has been used by nearly half a million indian users from all over the world and has become a partner of choice for leading brands, because of the high emphasis on its proprietary human-to-human coaching model and its ability to integrate all of their users needs, from custom-designed fitness plans to live chats with coaches to real time analysis of a users daily nutritional intake into one tightly knit platform.

Speaking on the occasion, Shubham Goyal, Co Founder, Fitard, shared, “We had noticed that a large part of the reason that most people don’t meet their health or weight loss goals was because they found it difficult to stay motivated and we were keen to solve that problem. By partnering with Obino, we will come closer to our goal of providing a holistic ecosystem to anyone who wants to get healthier. Both the teams are aligned on the understanding that the ultimate reward is to see a happy client, who is at the end of their weight loss goal, but at the beginning of their fitness journey for life.”

Pankaj Singh Bora, other Co Founder, Fitard added, “Technology is the core of Fitard. We have been trying to solve the complex problem of motivation by identifying psychological triggers through data driven intelligence. An easy interface makes Fitard more usable. One can have an early mover advantage with an awesome idea but the Product needs continuous improvements to keep that lead.”

According to the Global Nutrition Report of 2016, it was highlighted that like all countries, India must pay attention to its growing rate of overweight, and in particular, high number of diabetic patients. In past 10 years, the number of obese people has doubled in the country, according to the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-4). Obesity has been linked to a host of illnesses including diabetes, cardiovascular disease and breathing disorders. It is imperative that we become proactive towards adopting fitness.