What if you could bring an entire gym into your home without having to set aside a room for it? For many people living in small apartments, the difficulty of finding space for exercise equipment is a familiar problem. Four graduates of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi, decided to work on this very difficulty. Their answer was Aroleap X, a wall-mounted home gym that has since attracted the attention of industrialist Anand Mahindra.
“Home gym created by 4 IIT grads. No rocket science here. But a clever convergence of mechanics & physical therapy principles to design a product that has global potential. In small apartments & even in Business Hotel rooms! Bravo!” Mahindra wrote on X in October 2024, sharing a video of the product.
But how did four engineers arrive at the idea of building a gym that could fit against a wall? The story began with a problem they had encountered in their own lives.
In late 2019, the four friends – Aman Rai, Anurag Dani, Rohit Patel and Amal George – began discussing the possibility of building a business together.
Their interests had much in common. Rai was an ultra-marathon runner, two of the others were regular gym-goers, while the fourth had an interest in callisthenics. Their shared interest in fitness, coupled with their technical knowledge, led them to consider a question: could the equipment of a gym be brought into a small home?
Rai, a chemical engineering graduate, had found it difficult to maintain his strength training routine while managing his professional commitments in Bengaluru. Living in rented accommodation, he could not keep several pieces of gym equipment at home.
Anurag Dani faced a similar difficulty owing to his working hours. Rohit Patel and Amal George, both familiar with robotics, saw an engineering problem worth solving.
The four began working on a machine that could provide resistance without requiring conventional weights.
Rather than using multiple weight plates, they explored the possibility of generating resistance through motors. The idea was to replace physical weights with what they called digital weights.
The undertaking was not accomplished in a few weeks. According to The Better India, the founders developed nearly 15 prototypes over the course of their work and invested close to Rs 25 lakh of their own money. In 2020, they incorporated Aroleap Fitness Private Limited.
Their research and development continued during the pandemic, when the founders returned to their respective homes.
The first working prototype was tested among friends and prospective customers. The founders also shared videos of the machine on social media and invited people to try it. Feedback from these early users helped them make changes to the design.
But developing a machine was only one part of the undertaking.
Finding people willing to invest in an unfamiliar product was another matter.
One of the founders, Rohit Patel, approached Zerodha co-founder Nithin Kamath. According to Rai’s account to The Better India, Kamath visited their apartment in Bengaluru, tried the prototype and subsequently became their first angel investor.
After years of development, Aroleap X was launched commercially in May 2022. The machine occupies approximately four feet by two feet of wall space, comparable to a vertically mounted television.
The company subsequently appeared on Shark Tank India Season 3, where the founders presented their product to investors. This brought Aroleap before another audience, beyond the early customers who had tested its prototypes.
Its next notable moment came in October 2024, when Anand Mahindra shared a video of the product on X. His observation about its global potential brought the venture further attention. Yet Mahindra also pointed to the question that every young enterprise must eventually answer: how can an invention be made commercially viable and widely available?
The Better India reported that the company had sold more than 300 units across 20 cities and recorded a turnover of Rs 3.5 crore in 2023-24.
What began with four friends discussing a difficulty in their daily lives has thus grown into a business built around a particular understanding of modern homes and fitness.
The question now is whether Aroleap can take this idea beyond its early market and make it accessible to a wider public. Mahindra has expressed his confidence in its potential.
– Ends
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