Nearly a year after launching its adaptive fitness app, Tijeras-based startup TruFit has partnered with a health care provider and realized a long-time goal of one of the startup's founders.
Western Sky Community Care, a regional health care provider that's a subsidiary of Centene Corporation, announced Thursday that it formed a partnership with TruFit to provide the startup's app to its members with intellectual, developmental and physical disabilities.
TruFit's app will be available to members of Western Sky Community Care at no charge, according to a release from the health care provider.
"It's really exciting, because it validates our mission and what we're trying to do," Adam White told Business First.
White founded TruFit alongside his brother, John, in 2010.
"I'm really excited that they're here in New Mexico, too," Adam White said. "It's exciting to see a local company see the benefit for their disabled members."
Originally set up to sell training equipment to families, TruFit pivoted to focus on fitness services for people with disabilities in the past couple of years. It launched its fitness app, which is available on the Apple app store and Google Play store, in May 2022.
A monthly subscription to the app costs $10, but White told Albuquerque Business First in December that he wanted to land contracts with health care companies to increase access to the app and bring it to more users. Now, the startup has done just that.
TruFit signed its contract with Western Sky in December and spent the first quarter working out the app's logistics. Using an app like TruFit's is new to Western Sky, as well, White said.
He didn't provide an estimate for how many new users would be able to access the app through this new partnership but said that the startup is primarily looking at members of Western Sky with Medicaid.
"Through this partnership, we aim to help Western Sky members improve their physical, behavioral and social health — all of which contribute to overall health and wellbeing," Susan Lewis, chief medical director at Western Sky, said in a prepared statement.
The startup is in the middle of raising a seed round for $1 million, and White said that this new partnership could help bring in more money for that round. The startup signed a contract with Philadelphia-based consulting firm Marion Street Capital last fall to expand its network of potential investors.
And the company — recently named a Startup to Watch — is still in the process of developing a web-based application that would be available through desktop and smart televisions, alongside integrating its app with wearable fitness gear like smart watches, White said.
