HÀ NỘI — Việt Nam’s fitness platform WeFit.vn has successfully raised US$1 million in a pre-Series A funding round from Japan’s CyberAgent Capital, the Republic of Korea’s KBInvest and undisclosed angel investors.

WeFit, which raised $155,000 investment led by homegrown venture capital firm ESP Capital in 2017, is a mobile platform providing users subscription packages for fitness and beauty services across over 1,000 locations in Hà Nội and HCM City.

According to WeFit’s founder and CEO Nguyễn Khôi, the funding raised will be used for new product development as well as to expand to a new market. The firm indicated it expects to have a million users signed up and to raise its Series A round in 2019.

Nguyễn Mạnh Dũng, director of CyberAgent Capital in Việt Nam, said they were very impressed with what WeFit had built over the past two years and believed WeFit would soon create a completely different health and beauty behavior in Việt Nam.

Mintel statistics report that the traditional fitness and beauty market in Việt Nam is estimated at over $2.5 billion and is growing at a rate of about 25-30 per cent per year.

Established in 2016, WeFit is a portfolio company of the first cohort of Việt Nam Innovative Startup Accelerator (VIISA). The two-year-old start-up claims to have more than 150,000 bookings currently while helping its partners grow an average of 10 per cent per month.

Via WeFit, users can search and book fitness and beauty sessions located nearby from over 30 options, ranging from gym and yoga to dance classes, boxing and swimming, without the need to permanently work out at the same location. Meanwhile, WeFit’s partners – including fitness centres and beauty spas – can optimise operational costs and increase profit gain by receiving traffic coming from WeFit. — VNS