BULKING UP: INSIDE THE FITNESS APP BOOM
AS CHRIS Hemsworth returns to the screen as Marvel superhero Thor, thousands of fitness fanatics have been downloading his Centr workout app in an effort to replicate his bulging muscles.
Health and wellness has been pulled sharply into focus during the past two-and-ahalf years as Covid-19 has up-ended the way we live, work and play. Hemsworth, who’s app has a valuation of $US200M ($297m) after it was snapped up by Highpost Capital, is not alone is capitalising on the craze.
Telstra Ventures - one of Australia’s biggest venture capital firms - has led several funding rounds for La-based Fiton, which in the past three months has had about double the downloads of Centr, according to Digital.ai. Telstra Ventures general partner Yash Patel says Fiton is one of the only fitness apps that had no paywall to begin with.
“How they generate revenues is that there’s always going to be naturally ‘whale’ users that are high users that will subscribe to their premium service,” he said.
Chris Hemsworth said his app was “carefully curated and integrated fitness, nutrition, and mindfulness programs, guiding beginners and more experienced users”.
Australia’s biggest health insurer Medibank created its own Live Better app in 2019 and so far has about 500,000 members.
“We’re now looking to expand Live Better into other high growth health and wellbeing markets,” a Medibank spokeswoman said.
Fiton has tapped into this revenue stream, acquiring wellness platform Peerfit.
“So the combined entity has close to a million paid members, including on the consumer side and covered insurance side.”