What if there was an app that would track your food intake and calories for free? Well, there is one. For those who are new to fitness and are not sure about investing in a food scale to track the macros and micros, the app HealthifyMe can work wonders for you.
Founded in 2012, HealtifyMe is the brainchild of CEO Tushar Vashisht and Mathew Cherian. In one of the interview stories found online, Vashisht says that it was not like he had the idea from the get-go to build the app. It initially began as an Excel sheet, where Vaishisht would tack his own calories. Eventually, as the need for the application increased, they decided to build a platform for it.
About the Founder
Regarding Tushar’s background, he was born in Haryana and completed his Master’s from Delhi College of Engineering and Netaji Subhas Institute of Technology, followed by pursuing another degree in computer science from the University of Pennsylvania in 2007.
His professional career began by working as an intern at BlackRock, after which he joined Deutsche as a full-time technology investment banking analyst, where he worked for over 2 years. In 2009, he started working with UIDAI, the Government of India, as a project strategy manager and met the future members and early investors for his startup.
A fun fact about the founder, which not many know about Tushar, is that he is also a Hindustani classical singer and a member of the A Cappella group Penn Masala from 2005 to 2007. The song ‘Pehchaan,’ composed by Tushar himself, gained a lot of recognition back in 2008 which earned him a spot on America’s Best of College A Cappella in 2008.
Founding of HealthifyMe
In one of the interviews, Tushar mentions that the app was founded as a solution to the rise of obesity and lifestyle diseases like diabetes and hypertension globally. He believed that, with the increasing number of overweight and malnourished people, there needed to be something that would balance the two extremes. This gap was not only prevalent in India but also US and China, particularly in LATAM, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. With the advent of AI, Tushar has been able to integrate it into his app to provide better and more personalised health support.
About what the app can do for you, even if one does not have a trainer, nutritionist or weighing scale, the app will work as your diet and meal planner based on your BMI, goals and lifestyle.
The app will also help you stay conscious of what you eat throughout the day by logging your meals and checking your photos. Even if you do not have a weighing scale, you can log your meals based on the ‘Katori’ system or photos of the meals. The app also logs your steps throughout the day, the calories you burn, track sleep, and your water intake.
According to Tracxn, till now, the company has raised a total of over $130M from 37 investors. Some of the names of these investors are the Finnish Fund for Industrial Cooperation, Kempen & Co., Healthquad, Khosla Ventures, Leapfrog Investments, etc.
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