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This tech start-up has secured initial seed funding and plans to raise another $750,000 in 2015

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Sydney-based tech start-up OneFitStop recently announced that it has received early stage seed funding as it puts final touches on its technology and prepares its initial rollout in the Australian fitness industry.

The investor behind this initial funding is Lewis Bloch, a vastly experienced Sydney-based entrepreneur. However, the amount raised remains undisclosed.

The start-up plans to use the funds to finalise technological developments on its platform ahead of the signing of significant contracts in the fitness industry valued between $2 million and $5 million over the course of 2015.

The first step in what is expected to be a long journey

Co-founder David Zeff told Anthill that they anticipate that this funding will be the first step in their investment road map, in which they expect to raise around $750,000 over the course of 2015 from several investors.

Zeff said that he and co-founder Jarron Aizen could no longer bootstrap their start-up and needed to raise capital to complete the development of the platform in order to lock in some large offers they have received from big players in the fitness industry.

Zeff and Aizen took other alternatives into consideration but decided to take the angel investment route because they felt it was best suited to their needs at this stage, “particularly as the Australian investment climate seems to be geared heavily towards growth and not seed funding.”

He added that they have now caught the attention of venture capital firms, with several expressing interest in funding the next round.

Zeff says their angel investor Bloch will be of great value to their start-up given his vast business experience across 14 industries and revealed to Anthill that Bloch saw OneFitStop’s vision in the very first meeting, and was ready to fund them right away.

What exactly does OneFitStop do?

A veteran of the fitness industry, Zeff created OneFitStop alongside tech co-founder Jarron Aizen after noticing many pitfalls of the industry, which lead to its notorious high turnover rate and poor business performance.

OneFitStop is an on-the-go cloud-based SME platform and online community that aims to help trainers run their businesses more effectively, offering them various tools to promote their services to new clients and manage their current clients.

The start-up had a soft launch at the Australian Health and Fitness Expo in 2014 and has managed to recruit close to 1,000 Beta testers.

OneFitStop expects to have the initial launch of its finalized platform for the Australian fitness industry, in which 30,000 personal trainers and 3.3 million Australians are currently active, by April 2015.

The company intends working closely with key industry bodies, governmental and industry associations to effectively facilitate its market acceptance.

Could OneFitStop also work well in other industries?

The platform, which has already received the support of the Australian Government and of key figures in the Australian fitness industry, focuses on automating many of the necessary processes to manage and grow a business.

OneFitStop has been working to develop an effective and efficient platform for micro and small businesses operating on the go. This means they might actually have their eye on penetrating other industries, not just fitness alone.

“OneFitStop allows small and micro businesses to manage and grow, by focusing on all the things that businesses hate doing, but need to do,” says Zeff.

Aizen, who works closely with its technology development, believes that the platform’s success relies on its ease of use and accessibility.

“Our goal is to create an innovative, highly accessible business and communication platform which will be available both online and offline in app form across mobile, tablet and computer mediums,” he said.

“We believe this will create a dramatic improvement in the day to day lives of small businesses across industries where services are dominant.”