Best Startup
At Best Startup UK we track over 130,000 UK startups and over 500,000 people who hold key positions in these companies. We use this directory of startups to highlight top employees, founders and board members we think deserve more appreciation than they are currently getting.
This list showcases the top London based CEO’ operating in the Fitness space. If you think a CEO’ is missing from this list, feel free to contact our editor on editor@beststartup.co.uk.
The individuals on this list have been included because of exceptional performance in one of the following categories:
- Innovation – Operating as a key part in an extremely innovative business or startup.
- Growth – Operating as a key figure in the growth and upscale of a market leading business or startup.
- Management – Showing exceptional management skills.
- Societal impact – Putting their business on the map for their positive societal or environmental impact.
Our Data – We source our data from OSINT (open source intelligence) and public directories such as Companies House UK, Crunchbase, SemRush and many more. The data from these sources should be treated with a degree of caution and verified yourself.
Humphrey Cobbold
Chief Executive Officer of Pure Gym
Humphrey Cobbold is the chief executive officer at Pure Gym. He is a former chief executive officer at Wiggle. Humphrey holds an MBA from INSEAD.
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About Pure Gym: PureGym is a gym operator that provides affordable and convenient access to fitness facilities in the U.K.
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Eric Min
Co-Founder and CEO of Zwift
Zwift Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Zwift. He was the Vice President at JP Morgan before co-founding and working as Chief Executive Officer at Sakonnet Technology, a commodities trading and risk management platform.
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About Zwift: Zwift operates an online fitness platform used to transform monotonous solo indoor cycling into dynamic and social adventures.
Adnan Ebrahim
Co-founder & CEO of MindLabs
Co-founder & CEO of MindLabs. Previously Founder & CEO of Car Throttle (acquired by Dennis Publishing in 2019). Forbes 30 Under 30 2020.
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About MindLabs: MindLabs is the world’s first live mental health platform.
Daniel Shellard
CEO, Co-Founder of Fiit
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About Fiit: The UK’s highest-rated fitness platform, Fiit has thousands of global members and partnerships with brands including Sky and The Gym Group.
David Plans
CEO and Co-Founder of BioBeats
David Plans is a member of the University of Surrey’s Center for Digital Economy and Center for Vision, Speech and Signal Processing, and is working towards machine learning solutions to foster human wellbeing. His primary research focus is adaptive media and affective modelling. Having worked on early mHealth projects in the NHS, he is now leading smartphone and wearable research projects at BUPA, AXA/PPP, and Microsoft Health with his startup, BioBeats, where they are helping actuarial and care provision teams think differently about preventative health.
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About BioBeats: BioBeats is a human company that creates digital artificial intelligence products to tackle mental health globally.
Damian Milkins
Chief Executive Officer of Amplify Life
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About Amplify Life: Amplify Life is an app that provides coaching for fitness and wellbeing.
Chris Edson
Co-founder & CEO of Second Nature
Christopher Edson CEO & Founder of EU Top 50 Startup, Forbes 30 Under 30
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About Second Nature: Second Nature is a digital programme that helps people lead healthier lives
Jonathan Relph
Founder & CEO of VITL
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About VITL: On a mission to make healthy living more achievable, providing beautifully designed, expertly researched nutritional products and content.
Sam Cole
Co-Founder and CEO of FitXR
Sam draws on his experience from consulting and private equity to drive FitXR forward into the uncharted lands of fit tech. Coming from a family of entrepreneurs, Sam was always enchanted by the prospect of building a company. Meeting Sameer at business school kick-started that dream. A lover of all things fitness, Sam is excited to develop a product that will help people access professional workouts, and build healthier communities around the world.
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About FitXR: FitXR, the leading developer of VR/AR fitness apps, is passionately dedicated to making fitness more fun and accessible for everyone.
Melinda Nicci
Founder and CEO of Baby2Body
Melinda is founder and CEO of Body Collective (Baby2body) the award- winning, wellness company for women.
She is a Sports and Exercise Psychologist, author of two bestselling books, is a regular contributor on the BBC, and sits on numerous boards as a NED, including The ICE List and Team GB (Olympic and Para-olympics snow-sport teams).
Melinda was named the UKBAA High Growth Founder of the year 2019/20, and has won numerous accolades and awards for entrepreneurship, including being named in the UK list of the Most Influential Women in Tech for 4 years running.
A serial entrepreneur, she founded and sold her first business at the age of 25 in South Africa, and held the position of Senior Director for Consumer health Innovation at Philips in Amsterdam. Melinda brings her passion for sport, performance and wellness to the numerous companies she advises and has created a global business with Body Collective, helping millions of women all over the world to live healthier and happier lives.
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About Baby2Body, GB Snowsport, ICE List: Baby2Body is a fully automated health, fitness and wellbeing coaching platform for pregnant women and mothers.
Douglas Lamont
CEO of innocent drinks
Douglas is the CEO of innocent drinks, having taken over from the founders in 2013. He has been at innocent for 10 years, in a number of leadership, marketing and innovation roles. Since becoming CEO, the business has grown by 50% to £300m of turnover, through product innovation and geographic expansion, to become Europe’s leading chilled drinks brand. Prior to innocent, Douglas spent 7 years at Freeserve (now Orange broadband) as part of the leadership team that grew the business from a start up to a leading UK internet service provider, his main role was as Director of Corporate Development. Douglas started his career at KMPG Corporate Finance and has studied at the University of Edinburgh and Harvard Business School.
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About innocent drinks: Innocent Drinks is a company that makes smoothies and juice.
Charles Wells
Founder & CEO of HelloSelf
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About Braintech, HelloSelf: HelloSelf is a health and wellness platform that provides its users with digital access to therapists.
Patrick Samy
Co-founder & CEO of Span
Through our families, we have experienced the anxiety of being diagnosed and living with cancer, diabetes, disabling genetic conditions. As curious scientists and engineers, we’ve always been passionate about medicine and biology and it led us to work hard to make health self-management simple and accessible.
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About Span: Span is a fitness and health tracker app that offers data-driven support for health and fitness.
David Meinertz
CEO of Zava
David Meinertz (born 1974) is CEO of Europe’s largest online doctor Zava (previously DrEd). He founded Zava with Amit Khutti in 2010. Since the start of service in 2011 Zava has treated over three million patients across six European countries. Before Zava, the entrepreneur was responsible for the international expansion of a leading telemedicine company in the UK, and held a senior position in a European investor focused on small to mid-sized companies in the field of healthcare, technology and distribution. Meinertz is a lawyer and graduated with an MBA from HEC Paris. Together with his wife and three sons he lives in London.
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About Zava: Zava is an online medical service provider and offers consultations, diagnostics and medication without the need for a face-to-face visit.
Xavier Louis
Co-founder & CEO of Peak
Xavier is a former social gaming specialist (Playfish / Electronic Arts) turned into mobile product entrepreneur. Xavier recently started brainbow, building the #1 social mobile knowledge games – helping people to get smarter through games.
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About Peak: Peak’s mission is to help the world spend their time better using tools and technique borrowed from education, neuroscience and gaming.
Alex Hind
CEO & Co-Founder of Heka
Alex Hind, CEO & Co-Founder of GoSweat.
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About Heka: The personalised health platform to make your employees feel valued.
Jack Tang
Co-Founder & CEO of Urban
A startup entrepreneur and angel investor. Currently Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Urban Massage – a B2C and B2B technology marketplace connecting wellness professionals with buyers in their local neighborhood. Prior to founding Urban Massage, he founded a social network and app-based job board TheStudentJob.com
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About Urban: Urban is an online wellness appointment platform for booking in-person and online treatments.
Jason de Savary
CEO of Core Collective
Core Collective founder Jason de Savary.
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About Core Collective: Core Collective is a premium pay-as-you-go fitness studio
Jorge Armanet
CEO & Co Founder of HealthUnlocked
Technology and Media Entrepreneur In 2000 he founded Plataforma Publico, an open source media lab that promotes cultural creativity and ideas; in 2002 he founded the popular network and magazine Hecho en Chile – a Chilean ‘Big Issue’ and support network for low-income students; in 2007 he founded DO TANK, a technology lab building functional prototypes for the private sector to test and scale new web business models; and in 2009 he co-founded HealthUnlocked, the social health platform. He holds degrees in Engineering, Economics, Arts and Business from the Catholic University of Chile, Goldsmiths College, and Cambridge University. He held academic scholarships from the British Chevening, the Shell Centenary Fund, the Cambridge Overseas Trust and the Jesus College Foundation. Based in London, UK, he is now full time and permanently dedicated to HealthUnlocked.
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About HealthUnlocked: HealthUnlocked is a social network for health.
James Balfour
Co-founder & CEO of 1Rebel
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About 1Rebel: 1Rebel is a new fitness venture.
Jamie Ward
CEO & Co-Founder of Hussle
Jamie Ward grew up in Northern Ireland and then went to Nottingham University to study Chemical Engineering (MEng). Prior to becoming an Entrepreneur Jamie most recently working for Ernst & Young, running large scale M&A projects focusing on pre-deal due diligence and post-deal merger integration. Whilst training for a sporting event Jamie and his colleague at the time became frustrated at the lack of flexibility in the health club market. The pair saw a gap the market to make it easier and more flexible for people to go to the gym whilst providing an additional revenue to gyms. Hussle (formerly PayAsUGym) was launched in February 2011and has grown to the largest online gym marketplace in the UK with over 2,500 gyms on board servicing the need of thousands of those of us with lifestyles that demand flexibility. Hussle has developed into mainstream tech enabled fitness brand and a sophisticated pricing and insight tool for operators to acquire new customers and maximize club yields.
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About Hussle: The largest health & wellness platform in the UK connecting people and fitness.
Nick Paulson-Ellis
Founder & CEO of The Sports Edit
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About The Sports Edit: The Sports Edit is a multi-channel retailer.
Laura Douglas
Co-founder & CEO of myLevels
Laura is a Research Scientist at babylon health. Her current research uses Probabilistic Inference and Bayesian Networks to model the diagnostic process of a GP. Previously, she has researched ways to predict patient outcomes for a health tech start-up in Singapore, and built state of the art Natural Language Processing tools for another London based start-up. She holds an MSc in Machine Learning from UCL and a Masters (Part III) in Maths from the University of Cambridge.
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About myLevels: MyLevels makes it possible to see how you uniquely respond to food, in real time.
Joseph Welstead
Co Founder & CEO of Motion Nutrition
Former international swimmer, Joe is a performance expert and cofounder of Motion Nutrition. ‘Smart drugs’ are what Joe and his team of neuroscientists develop helping to improve decision making, memory recall and mental performance under stress.
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About Motion Nutrition: Motion Nutrition help people stress less, sleep deeper and do better with our organic supplements.
Govin Murugachandran
CEO of Flynotes
Govin is a dual qualified dentist and doctor who was educated at UCL and KCL respectively. After this he completed his medical foundation years and his surgical training, both within the London Deanery. Most recently, Govin was an Oral and Maxillofacial surgeon at the Royal Free hospitals in London.
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About Acea Health, Flynotes: Flynotes is an innovative digital consent platform, improving patient safety across healthcare.
Xavier Bernal
Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Findoc
Xavier Bernal is Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Findoc.
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About Findoc: Platform for booking appointments with healthcare professionals.
Megha Prakash
CEO & Founder of Earthmiles
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About Earthmiles: Track and be rewarded for your healthy and fit activities. Get exclusive deals on the widest range of fitness products.
Philip Kasumu
CEO Founder of Lyle
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About Lyle, Scanbite: AI Nutritional Weight Loss Coach for Men
Sean Radford
Founder & CEO of TrainAsONE
Our founder Sean Radford is a medical doctor, an international multi-day mountain marathon podium finisher and an IT expert – he designed the first internet- enabled primary care system for UK GP’s. Additionally he has worked on many varied health & social wellbeing projects for numerous organisations, including charities such as The Amy Winehouse Foundation.
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About TrainAsONE: The award-winning AI running coach for runners of all abilities and goals.
Fares Alaboud
CEO & Founder of The Medic App
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About The Medic App: The Medic App gives you the ability to schedule medication reminders and track your adherence.
Adam Pike
Co-Founder & CEO of SuperCarers
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About SuperCarers: SuperCarers is an online platform helping families to find trusted carers living in their local area.
Ben Barker
Founder & CEO of Run An Empire
Founder of Run An Empire.
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About Hello Lamp Post, PAN Studio, Run An Empire: A real world strategy running game
Daniel Williams
Owner, Founder, and CEO of WIT Fitness
Daniel Williams is the Owner, Founder, and CEO at WIT Fitness Ltd
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About WIT Fitness: Itself as a unique, multi-brand fitness concept store.
Nickolai Vysokov
CEO of BrainPatch
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About BrainPatch: BrainPatch is a Neurotechnology startup disrupting the industry of non-invasive brain stimulation.
Jamie Wilson
Founder and CEO of hometouch
Jamie Wilson is a UK doctor and founder of HomeTouch. His company offers an online marketplace for finding experienced care professionals locally for elderly and personal care. The carers have an app that allows them to respond to job enquiries, monitors their care activities and manages their contracts. HomeTouch is supported by organisations like the Nominet Trust and Technology Strategy Board.
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About hometouch: hometouch is a home-care marketplace connecting families looking for home care to professional carers.
Emeka Ogbonnaya
Founder and CEO of Zoique
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About Zoique: A marketplace to discover and book wellness-themed team-building activities, connecting corporate teams to a variety of fitness experiences.
Maria Ferrer Iori
CEO & Founder of FitSprint
After seven years experience as a fitness instructor, Maria realised many of her colleagues were being left in the cold of the digital revolution with limited software at their disposal. To address this major market gap, she founded FitSprint – a self-service tool to digitally empower instructors. Prior to founding FitSprint, Maria founded London Fitness and Health (LF&H), and successfully implemented a variety of dance, fitness and yoga programmes throughout the UK. She holds a BA from the University of Miami and a Master’s degree from Kings College London. Maria keeps fit by teaching Zumba, Power Yoga RYT200HR, Barre, AntiGravity Yoga, and Step classes throughout Greater London.
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About FitSprint: FitSprint provides custom designed websites for fitness instructors.
Alex Howard
CEO of Conscious 2
Alex Howard is co-founder of Giftcoin, a blockchain startup with the vision of bringing more money to charities globally by helping them create absolute trust and transparency in how funds are used. Alex is also founder of The Optimum Health Clinic a leading health charity with patients in over 40 countries, and founder of Conscious Life a leading video platform for health and wellbeing. With a background in psychology and entrepreneurship, Alex’s passion is the potential for technology to be used to make the world better.
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About Conscious 2: Conscious 2 is your all access pass to mindfulness, yoga and spiritual teachings online.
Antimo Farid Mir
CEO and Founder of AREEA
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About AREEA: Pioneering urban health
Venetia Archer
CEO & Founder of Ruuby
One of the Forbes 30 under 30, Venetia is Founder and CEO of Ruuby. A graduate of the University of Cambridge, Archer launched Ruuby in 2015, and the company has since been voted best on-demand app by Vogue, Harpers’ Bazaar and others. Ruuby is a luxury on-demand beauty services platform operating in London, delivering beauty and wellness services to private clients, hotel groups and other corporates.
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About Ruuby: London’s On Demand Beauty Services Marketplace
Ilyanna Kerr
Co-Founder & CEO of See What I Mean
Ilyanna studied Design at Goldsmiths College, University of London and the SWiM app originated from a final year project focused on how linking speech to images can strengthen understanding and aid communication. Ilyanna’s work as a designer focuses on interaction and visual communication. She has worked at leading design agency Pentagram, where her clients included Maggie’s Cancer Care Centres, the Science Museum, Saks Fifth Avenue, and the Royal Academy of Arts.
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About See What I Mean: See What I Mean is a speech to image communication tool that translates words into pictures.
Koen van den Heuvel
Co-Founder and CEO of Fitu App
Koen van den Heuvel is the co-founder and CEO of Fitu App. Prior to this, Koen spent more than one year as a self-employed online retailer at Amazon.
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About Fitu App: Fitu App offer group fitness classes from freelance trainers for the price of a pint, at any desired time and location.
Daria Kantor
CEO & Founder of TruBe
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About TruBe: Available in London initially, TruBe instantly connects you with all relevant trainers, ready to help you meet your goals.
Andraz Ogorevc
Founder, CEO & Director of iHELP World
Andraz Ogorevc is Founder & CEO at iHELP World.
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About iHELP World: An online platform that provides immediate assistance by connecting users in any type of emergency.
John Mooren
CEO of TRAIN ME Fitness Ltd
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About TRAIN ME Fitness Ltd: Mobile smart fitness platform for Personal Trainers and their clients
Mikko Petäjä
Founder and CEO of Yogaia
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About Yogaia: Yogaia is the first live, interactive online yoga studio in the world. With Yogaia, the studio is where you are.
Catherine McCarthy
CEO of Medical Aid Films
Catherine brings a wealth of senior experience from the BBC where she was for many years, a commissioner and TV exec. She has a background in educational broadcasting, she set up and ran BBC Learning Zone and co-commissioned many award winning BBC series, including some of the biggest BBC landmark programmes. She is passionate about using media to make a difference. She previously worked for BBC Media Action, the BBC’s International Development Charity, where she was a Senior Adviser supporting teams around the world to produce high quality content. She worked in Bangladesh as Head of an innovative award winning multimedia project which has transformed the lives of millions. Prior to the BBC she worked for VSO and SHELTER. She is originally a trainer teacher. Catherine has been a mentor for Documentary Campus, a global project to develop new talent in film-making, an Advisory Member to the European Broadcasting Union, a Governor at the Evelina School in St Thomas’s Hospital and an Adviser to Sheffield Documentary Film Festival and Global Health Films initiative. She served on the steering group of the initial Nominet Trust’s 100 most innovative social tech projects world-wide.
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About Medical Aid Films: Medical Aid Films uses innovative media to transform the health and wellbeing of women and children around the world.
Paul Lamkin
Co-CEO of Wareable Media Group
Prior to founding Wareable, Paul was a contributing editor on Pocket-lint where he was nicknamed ‘news monkey’ due to his comprehensive coverage of everything and anything new in tech. He then edited a laptop magazine where the pace was a little bit slower (as were some of the readers). When he wasn’t writing about RAM or SSD options Paul also penned more interesting reviews for Tech Radar and T3. Most recently the senior editor of MSN Tech, Paul is a self-confessed geek and has been accused of being both an Apple ‘fanboy’ and a Google ‘fandroid’ – so at least you know that his bias is balanced.
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About Pocket lint, Wareable Media Group, Wareable Media Group: Wareable Media Group has expanded to three publications: Wareable, The Ambient and Get Sweat Go.
Dominic Thorpe
Founder and Managing Director- Acting CEO and in charge of fundraising, strategy, and development of Wireless Fitness
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About Wireless Fitness: The Wireless Fitness is an app that portable exercise studio in your phone
Brian Smith
Cofounder & CEO of BeInspired Fitness
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About BeInspired Fitness: BeInspired Fitness offers an e-commerce platform that enables its users to find and get service from physiotherapists and nutritionists.
Bonnie Lister Parsons
Founder and CEO of Seen On Screen
Bonnie Lister Parsons is the founder and CEO of Seen on Screen.
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About Seen On Screen: Seen On Screen Digital makes Seen On Screen’s super successful dance
Bonnie Lister Parsons
Founder and CEO of Seen On Screen
Bonnie Lister Parsons is the founder and CEO of Seen on Screen.
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About Seen On Screen: Seen On Screen Digital makes Seen On Screen’s super successful dance
Veronica Fengting Xu
Founder & CEO of RAWK Ltd
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About RAWK Ltd: Tailor made macro nutrition food, delivered daily.
Carl Thorsen
CEO of PureLifeStyle Solutions Ltd
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About PureLifeStyle Solutions Ltd: PureLifeStyle provides white label SaaS health and fitness tracking services to health clubs, personal trainers, businesses and individuals.
Raj Gurung
Founder & CEO of FIITHIT
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About : Fitness Social platform to connect people with alike minds and share fitness contents. Get inspired and motivate others along the way.
