Cult.fit acquires Gold Gym fitness chain across India

Health and fitness platform Cult.fit has announced the acquisition of a majority stake in the Gold Gym fitness centres chain across India, in line with its plans to consolidate its position in the aggressively growing fitness industry. The platform said that it has picked up a majority stake in F2 Fun & Fitness India Pvt Ltd, thereby becoming the master franchise partner for Gold’s Gym in India. This investment by Cult.fit will be instrumental in reinforcing the company’s strong commitment to building the largest fitness & wellness ecosystem in India, according to an official handout.

Cult.fit plans to continue scaling its business nationally, across non-metro cities and towns, as well as house brands like Gold’s Gym into its network to further propel their growth in the coming years.

The second largest player in the fitness industry, with 140+ outlets in 90+ cities, Gold’s Gym, like Cult.fit, is an immensely popular fitness chain enjoying high brand recall. It also has proven success across metros, as well as Tier 2 and 3 markets, along with multiple long-term franchise partnerships. As part of this strategic partnership, Cult.fit will be investing in scaling the revenue of existing Gold’s Gym centres through top-of-the-line marketing endeavours, and facilitating centre expansion via franchisees in coming years. Cult.fit will also be enabling all of Gold’s Gym centres with its industry leading centre-tech suite and customer app.

Cult.fit with this partnership will also look to expand the Gold’s Gym brand across key geographies such as Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Maldives, Nepal  and  Bhutan. This investment will additionally help augment cult’s single access pass – cultpass – further making access to premium fitness services easier and affordable, as per an official statement.

“Partnering with Gold’s Gym, we will be able to strengthen our network further and offer the best of everything in fitness in one place. Gold’s Gym’s significant experience and sizeable footprint via multiple franchise partnerships paired with our deep-tech expertise and process innovation creates a winning formula for our customers and potential franchise partners. Together, we aim to build immense value into the fitness ecosystem generating top-notch tech advancement, great business opportunities, and better returns for our partners in the long run,” Naresh Krishnaswamy, Growth and Marketing Head, Cult.fit, said.

 Nikhil Kakkar, Chief Operating Officer, Gold’s Gym, said that the fitness chain is on a mission to touch 200 clubs in 24 months

“Over the last 19 years, we have been privileged to work with the best partners in the fitness industry to successfully build the Gold’s Gym brand in India. With this partnership, we can now leverage Cult.fit’s strong technology, operations and demand generation capabilities to further empower and enable our high-quality supply to scale. We see this partnership as a great win-win for our passionate franchise partners, enabling faster recovery out of the pandemic and being their partner in growth for the long run. This also allows us to give our loyal customers access to the best of fitness services across the country,” Kakkar added.