The Birth of a Fitness Revolution — Our Journey to 200 Fitness Centers

“The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step” — Lao Tzu

It all started with the acquisition of Cult Sarjapur back in Apr 2016! A different concept of fitness. No one could have predicted that there would be 200+ centers in 3 years! Thanks to all the love we received, we have reached a great milestone — something that makes us the largest & most loved fitness chain in India, and hopefully abroad in a couple of years from now!

With centers opening up in HSR Layout, JP Nagar, Indiranagar & Bellandur in Bengaluru, Cult became the talk of the town. We also got Hrithik Roshan on board as our partner and developed one of our most-loved formats, HRX Workout, with him.

With more people showing interest in Cult, we worked towards opening new centers in Koramangala and a few more in HSR and Indiranagar.

When we started the cure.fit journey, we had taken a pledge to provide holistic fitness which would help people focus not only on their physical health, but their mental wellbeing too.

And that’s why in August 2017, we launched our very first mind.fit center that focused solely on Yoga and Meditation.

This was an entirely new concept and design, with a holistic approach towards health & fitness, which people instantly related to.

Now that we had a built a niche presence in Bengaluru, it was about time we entered a new city.

In November 2017, we launched our first Cult center in NCR, making us a multi-city fitness brand.

Now that everything was favouring our vision, we were able to acquire 10 Fitness First centres, welcoming them to the Cult family and taking our total tally to 50 centers in June, 2018.

It took us close to 2 years to put out the first 50 centers.

The road from 50 to 100 centers

By now, we had identified our secret formula to open standardized Cult centers in quick time without compromising on quality and safety. We had figured out the optimal center design, equipment, team structures, hiring of trainers and every other detail that goes into setting up a center. We were all set to put this recipe to test. We were set to go big!

The following 6 months was a fascinating period where people began to request Cult centers in their vicinity and we weren’t complaining at all. In fact, our customers also showed interest in leasing out their own properties, even wanting to run a Cult franchise. It was then that we knew the revolution had begun.

Between July and December of 2018, were able to open up 30+ centers in Bengaluru alone & 10+ in NCR. We also forayed into Hyderabad & were able to land in the city of dreams, Mumbai.

This was a period of accelerated growth and some key wins.

• We launched Cult in Marathahalli and the center saw 1000+ members in the 1st 50 days! We quickly and happily added another floor in the same building and also opened a mind.fit centre
• We established a dominating presence in Bengaluru. So much so that if you live in Bengaluru or ever visit Bengaluru, you’ll definitely relate to this
• We expanded rapidly in NCR— launched 4 centers in 4 days
• We tried to top the NCR pace of center launches and launched 4 centers across 3 cities all in 1 day!

The Big 200: Cult goes international!

With the success of launching 50 centers in a period of 6 months, we were ready for the next big challenge! We were set to go bigger, to double our growth in the next 6 months. Yes! We we took Cult from 100 to 200 fitness centers.

After growing deeply in the Bengaluru, NCR & Hyderabad markets, we set our eyes on Mumbai and launched 10+ centers in this phase. We were overwhelmed by the love Mumbai gave us. In fact, 4 Mumbai centres made it to our list of Top 10 Cult centres in India!

To continue to make quality fitness more accessible, in 2 months (May & June 2019), we opened Cult in 4 new cities — Chennai, Jaipur, and Pune in India & our first international center in Dubai.

Every new city we entered welcomed us with more love than the previous ones. We began to wonder why we weren’t there since the very beginning! Nevertheless, here we are now :)

With the hope to take fitness to the next level and to give people more choice in terms of workouts, we tied up with existing fitness centers like Apple Fitness and Aayana Yoga Academy and brought them on to our platform.

And just like that, we hit a double hundred! 200 fitness centers across 8 cities and 2 countries and we are only just getting started.

If we’re not in your city yet and you want us to be there next, let us know here!

Interested in making the world a fitter, healthier place? You can help by leasing/renting out your building space to us. Click here to share your details. If you’d like to have a cult franchise, let us know here. We’ll reach out to you.