California-Mumbai based Wearable fitness devices maker GOQii has said it has raised $13.4 million in Series A round of funding led by New Enterprise Associates (NEA) and China-based Cheetah Mobile. Other investors who participated in this round are Great Wall Club (GWC), a grouping of Chinese and American investors and Singapore-based DSG Consumer Partners.
Goqii offers a wearable fitness wrist-band paired with remote personalized coaching app. The band collects users' activity and sleep data. A personal coach assigned to the user reviews this data and connects with the user via mobile app to guide them towards their health and fitness goals. The band itself is free, and users pay a subscription fee for personalized coaching.
The company, which currently caters to Indian market, will use the funds to focus on expansion in new markets globally and growth, GOQii said in a statement.
Earlier in July, Paytm founder and CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma has invested an undisclosed amount in the startup.
Goqii was founded in 2014 by Vishal Gondal who previously founded the game development and publishing company Indiagames, which he sold to Disney in 2011 for $100 million.
After closing its beta Beta program in April 2014, GOQii became commercially available in India in August 2014.
GOQii's application also integrates with 35 major fitness bands including Jawbone, Fitbit, Garmin, Moov, Misfit and Sony. Users have to decide on a goal and chose a coach to guide them on the application.
Goqii is backed by angel investors like Amit Singhal (Google), Shriram Nene and his wife and Bollywood actress Madhuri Dixit-Nene and had raised $2.5 million.
The company has about 1 lakh users of its platform, who pay anywhere upwards of Rs 4,000 for a three-month coaching plan.
International Data Corporation (IDC) predicts that wearable device shipments will reach 76.1 million units in 2015, up 164 per cent from 2014. By 2019, worldwide wearable shipments is expected to reach 173.4 million units.
Advertisements