Health tech startup Healthifyme on Wednesday categorically denied that its co-founder and CEO Tushar Vashist owned any shell companies or Singapore holding companies with connection to politically influential figure. This denial is in response to damaging allegations made by that Pandora Paper published in the Indian Express.
In its official statement, Healthifyme said that Mr. Vashist is only a minority shareholder of the company and has no shareholding either in Lang Capital Fund, Asiaciti or Atlas Asset Management. The Indian Express article has specifically claimed that Healthifyme is linked to Lang Capital Fund (LCF), allegedly an offshore company that is owned by Kirill Androsov, who is a former aide of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The Indian Express article has further accused that Healthifyme made several transactions with supposedly at the behest of Mr. Vashist.
Healthifyme has said that though LCF is an existing investor and owned only 2% sharing holding in its based Singapore based parent entity. But this investment, the company added, was done in compliance with all the legal rules and regulations. The company’s official statement further added that Mr. Vashist had no shareholding in any Singapore based company outside Healthifyme Pte Ltd.
Notably, LCF had made a small investment in Healthifyme as part of the Series B in 2018. Tushar Vashisht was one of the three co-founders who co-founder Healthifyme. The other two being Mathew Cherian and Sachin Shenoy. Mr. Vashisht is a son of former Haryana DGP Shriniwas Vashist.
The company was recently in news for raising $75 Mn earlier this year from LeapFrog Investments and Vinod Khosla backed Khosla and host of other investors. This marked the company’s largest funding till date.
Healthifyme essentially operates a mobile health and fitness app that allows its users to achieve their fitness and weight loss goals. The app leverages the power of modern cutting edge technologies like artificial intelligence (AI).
What is Pandora Papers?
Pandora Papers are investigative documents consisting of 11.9 million leaked documents with 2.9 terabytes of data. These leaked documents reveals the secret offshore accounts of 35 world leaders as well as 100 billionaires consisting of celebrities, and business leaders. Pandora Papers has been described as the most expansive exposé of financial secrecy yet. The investigation was carried out by the body called International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).