App that gains as you shed weight NEW LEAGUE
So, you have decided to shed a few kilograms and are tired of dieticians and fitness instructors dictating your lifestyle. What you need is a monitor which helps you understand your weight, weight loss target and offers a complete guide till you attain your health goals. The app generation, who treat the Playstore on their handheld device as their lifeline, can be convinced only through app downloads. This is how the UAE app ‘weightmonitor’ (WM) was launched by 27-year-old Dev Aditya Khosla.
The app is based on a scientific weight loss programme where clients get access to a dedicated personal nutritionist along with a motivational scoring tool to help lose weight and stay fit.
Paucity of time, long working hours, hectic social lives and long daily commutes make it difficult to visit a nutritionist. WM offers the ability to start a weight loss programme and consult qualified nutritionists. The services can be accessed from an iOS app, Android app or www. weightmonitor.ae.
Khosla took the entrepreneurial plunge quite early in life. In 2012, he founded theweightmonitor.com, India’s online weight management website. The weightmonitor is dedicated towards servicing the growing need for obesity prevention services and is focused only on the India market. The portal currently services customers in over 100 cities across the country. He came to Dubai in 2016 to set up weightmonitor, an app-based full service weight loss programme.
India’s top nutritionist Ishi Khosla, who also works with WM, says the online and mobile weight loss programme will help the user to not only lose weight consistently and stay fit all through but also learn how to maintain and live a healthier lifestyle for life.
sunrise sector
With growing consumer awareness of the importance of health and fitness, seed funding for health and fitness tech startups has been rising at a consistent pace in the last couple of years. The fitness wellness industry is said to be the next sunrise sector. Considering all these factors, Weightmonitor UAE decided to raise its Series A funding to fuel its growth in fitness tech innovation.
Khosla launched this app in the UAE last month with an initial seed amount of Dh200,000 and is in between raising almost Dh3.67 million in pre-series which will be formally announced by the end of this month. The company is in talks with angels, venture capitalists in the UAE and some funds from India.
The app boasts of an active 1,500 users so far in the UAE and about 15,000 users in India, out of which 5,000 are premium clients. WM forecasts to have 100,000 users by March 2018 in the UAE and has witnessed maximum clicks from users in the age bracket of 18 to 35 years.
Weight Monitor FZE is a free zone establishment incorporated in November 2015
Our app simplifies the process of sustainable weight management and breaks it down to a scoring mechanism easily understood by the general audience. It moves away from the traditionally accepted one-size-fits-all calorie counter. Our goal is to reach out to every household in the country and make healthy eating a part of daily living
Dev Aditya Khosla, founder, Weightmonitor
and registered at the Dubai Silicon Oasis Authority. The programme offers customers a three-month plan at Dh499. Without the need to visit a nutritionist’s clinic every week for a follow-up, with Weightmonitor, premium users can consult a nutritionist multiple times each day.
“Our app simplifies the process of sustainable weight management and breaks it down to a scoring mechanism easily understood by the general audience. It moves away from the traditionally accepted one-size-fits-all calorie counter. Our goal is to reach out to every household in the country and make healthy eating a part of daily living,” said Khosla.
During the duration of the programme, the customer engages with their nutritionist on a daily basis via the following mechanisms: diet plans over a three-month period; Skype meetings; app chats; daily food diary and score reviews by the nutritionist; weekly weighins (weight check-ins) and medical report analysis.
The entry of Weightmonitor UAE in the region comes against the backdrop of rising cases of obesity. The average UAE resident is classified as being overweight with a BMI of about 25.6. Obesity continues to be a serious concern among Dubai and UAE residents at large. A recent survey by Zurich International Life showed that slightly over 47 per cent of UAE residents were overweight with most of them clocking a BMI of between 25 and 30.
According to a senior UAE health ministry spokesperson, obesity-induced diseases such as diabetes in the UAE has affected 19 per cent (one million residents) of the population and already accounts for three per cent of all deaths in the country.
— sandhya@khaleejtimes.com