Health and Fitness Company Founded by CS Alum Gets Acquired by Practo

Dhruv Gupta (BSE CS ’03) co-founded FitHo, a web and mobile based weight management program that provides customized diet plans and exercises, in 2011. FitHo has recently been acquired by Practo, an Indian health care startup that helps patients find doctors and book appointments online.

After graduating from Michigan in 2003, Gupta worked as a programmer at Convergys, then went on to do consulting at Pricewaterhouse Coopers. In 2007, he and his college roommate started DesiMartini, India’s number one website for the latest movie reviews, ratings, and trailers. DesiMartini was then acquired by HT Media, and in 2011 Dhruv started FitHo with his wife Prachi.

FitHo started as a website that provided nutrition and fitness information. Then the founders implemented their diet plan service that creates individualized plans that allows customers to speak to a dietitian and frequently obtain a different diet and exercise plan.

Gupta states, “I have always been personally passionate about fitness. With growing incidence of weight and lifestyle disorders across the world I recognized a huge need for developing technology to help people get healthier, by getting personalized advice that makes it easier for them to get fit. This could mean eating right or exercising. The idea was that you could use your mobile phone like your personal trainer or nutritionist. Using this as our vision we developed our technology, to power the mobile app.”

The FitHo app consists of two parts: the algorithm and the database. The database contains hundreds of thousands of meals and a wide variety of exercises with videos. Based on the user’s input and behavior, the algorithm creates a personalized diet and exercise program dynamically.

Each user gets their customized workout program daily, which comes with videos and voice instructions. Similarly, the meal plan is created around each users needs, goals and choices, to make it easier for them to follow it and get fitter. Their vision is for this technology to be powered by artificial intelligence, so that your phone actually behaves like your human-like fitness guide on demand.

Practo recently raised $30 million in funding from Sequoia Capital and Matrix Capital and plans on acquiring other companies in the future. Dhruv will go on to work for Practo as the Product Head for Preventive Healthcare.