Can Cult.fit Clear The Profitability Bar With Its Retail Push?

For years, Cult.fit’s playbook revolved around one thing: gym memberships. The fitness startup, founded in 2016 by former Flipkart executives Mukesh Bansal and Ankit Nagori, is expanding the game beyond the workout floor. It now wants to become the Decathlon of India, selling everything from apparel, footwear, and athleisure to gym equipment and even bicycles, as its push towards profitability intensifies. 

The shift is visible. According to CEO Naresh Krishnaswamy, products now contribute around 30% of Cult.fit’s overall revenue. Revenue from product sales grew from ₹64.2 Cr in FY22 to ₹326.4 Cr in FY25. During the same period, the company’s operating revenue rose from ₹215.7 Cr to ₹1,215.5 Cr.

As part of its broader effort to diversify revenue streams while improving profitability, Cult.fit has also expanded its offline retail presence, launched an affordable gym format called Cult Neo and entered niche segments such as Pilates. 

However, this does not mean that Cult.fit is moving away from its roots. Gym memberships continue to remain the backbone of the business. It is the product business that is emerging as the startup’s next growth engine. 

So, where is Cult.fit actually headed from here? Let’s find out…  

Converting Gym Goers Into Shoppers

Cult.fit’s growing focus on products may look like a dramatic pivot from the outside. However, in reality, the startup has spent around five years building this business. It first entered the apparel segment in 2020, followed by footwear and then home fitness equipment. In the last five years, its portfolio has expanded into categories such as spin bikes, treadmills, recovery devices (massagers) and fitness accessories. 

According to Krishnaswamy, the startup’s products business has benefited from years of category expansion. What began with apparel has gradually expanded into footwear, fitness equipment, recovery devices and accessories. “As these categories matured and found product-market fit, they started contributing meaningfully to our revenue growth,” Krishnaswamy said.

The startup has kept itself asset-light in this pursuit. While product design and material selection happen in-house, manufacturing is outsourced. 

“These two categories launched in the last two years and have grown quite significantly. The first is handheld recovery massagers. The second is fitness accessories, which range from gym bags and yoga mats to resistance bands,” he said. 

The CEO believes that they have a unique advantage when identifying new product opportunities. Every day, thousands of customers interact with the company through its gyms and fitness centres. This gives Cult.fit direct insight into what fitness enthusiasts use, need and are willing to spend money on, helping Cult.fit become relevant across every product category associated with fitness.

“If you think of a gym user, they need workout wear, shoes, accessories, gym bags, yoga mats, and several other products. We want to continue adding categories and increasing our presence across all relevant categories for a fitness user,” he added. 

How Cult.fit Is Building Distribution Beyond Marketplaces

For Cult.fit, Distribution has emerged as another key focus area for the company. Over the last two years, Cult.fit has built a network of 29 exclusive brand outlets (EBOs) from scratch, giving customers a dedicated touchpoint for its growing product portfolio. 

“An EBO gives you the ability to touch and feel. In categories like treadmills, it gives you the ability to try the product,” the CEO said, adding that the stores are benefiting from a built-in customer acquisition engine. 

As of now, around 70% of product sales is happening online, while the remaining 30% is offline. The startup plans to add another 30-35 stores this fiscal year, taking its total store count beyond 50. With this, it expects offline sales to account for a larger share of product revenue.  

Krishnaswamy is not keen on limiting itself to a few cities. Instead, he wants to expand beyond  Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Delhi to newer locations such as Lucknow and Pune. He also expects that most of its stores will break-even within nine to twelve months. 

Tapping The Mass Market With Cult Neo

While products have emerged as a meaningful growth driver, fitness services remain Cult.fit’s largest business. In this category, the startup has expanded into newer customer segments through Cult Neo, which is its affordable segment. 

“Attacking that sweet price point between ₹10,000 and ₹12,000 for an annual gym membership is a big driver of growth in the market,” the CEO said. 

The startup currently operates around 40 Cult Neo centres and expects the format to play a central role in future expansion. The affordable segment is growing at roughly twice the pace of the premium category. The startup intends to expand Neo across 100 Indian cities. 

Meanwhile, the startup is also experimenting with premium formats such as Pilates Circle. Launched a year ago, the format caters to customers looking for a specialised fitness experience. A Pilates Circle subscription costs around ₹30,000 for a few months. The CEO, however, does not expect Pilates Circle to scale at the same pace as Cult Neo.

Next Stop, Profitability?

As of now, Cult.fit is attempting to solve one of the biggest challenges that has followed it for years: building a sustainable and profitable business. According to Krishnaswamy, the improvement is not being driven by aggressive cost-cutting but by operating leverage. 

Rent remains the startup’s largest expense, followed by employee costs, marketing and management overheads. All of these continue to increase every year. 

“Expenses do increase every year. Employee costs go up. Rents increase contractually. We are not cutting expenses to drive profitability. Our revenue has been growing more than costs. More than that, we are able to achieve increasing revenue per gym while keeping costs relatively flat,” the CEO said.

 The same dynamic is playing out in the products business. As volumes increase and distribution expands, unit economics improve. The startup gains more pricing power, greater scale efficiencies and stronger margins. Together, products, offline retail and Cult Neo have emerged as three of the startup’s most important growth levers. 

While gyms remain the core of the business, Cult.fit is steadily building multiple revenue streams around the fitness consumer. However, its walk towards becoming the Decathlon of India still seems to be a long one.

Edited By Shishir Parasher
Creatives: Abhyam Gusai

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