Employer-funded reward points for walking, sleep and health check-ups
TL;DR Strideperk hands out reward points for daily steps, streaks, team challenges and annual check-ups. Employers and insurers fund the points and members spend them on gym passes, yoga classes and health vouchers. The points can't be cashed out or traded, which keeps the whole thing clear of India's crypto tax and gaming rules.
A third of Indian adults were physically inactive in 2016, and 43% of women[1]. Non-communicable diseases caused an estimated 63% of deaths in India that year[1], and inactivity feeds several of them.
So is it a knowledge problem? Not really. People know they should walk more but the motivation runs out after week one, the step counter stops being fun and the gym membership quietly goes unused. Employers pay for this through sick days and group health cover.
Insurers pay the claims. IRDAI has let them reward healthy policyholders since 2020[2], but building a rewards engine isn't what they're good at. Crypto move-to-earn apps tried tokens instead and got price swings and tax trouble for their effort.
What it does, in regulatory terms: wellness and behaviour change only. Strideperk does not screen, diagnose, monitor or treat disease and makes no prevention claims. The rules that matter here are tax, gaming and insurance rules, not medical ones.
Here's how it works - an employer or insurer enrols its people, and they connect a phone step counter or a wearable. They earn points for steps, streaks, a completed health check and team challenges. The AI sets each person a target that rises with their own history rather than a flat 10,000 steps, and it flags patterns that look like someone shaking their phone on the sofa. Departments can take each other on too. In the STEP UP trial, competition added 920 steps a day[3].
The seed paid people in a crypto token. In India that means FIU-IND registration for anyone handling tokens, a regulator that discourages token offerings[4] and a 30% tax on gains. Strideperk uses free points that can't be bought, sold or transferred, a kind of loyalty point CBDT keeps out of virtual digital assets[5]. Get a written tax opinion though, because the exclusion hangs on the details.
Members are working adults aged 25–45 who mean well and are short on time. They don't pay. Employers with 500–10,000 desk staff in IT, banking and pharma pay a monthly fee per employee plus a reward budget, and my rough estimate is ₹30–80 per employee per month. Insurers can fund renewal discounts and may pay providers only for the value of points redeemed[6]. Brands fund rewards for customers too, the way step-reward apps run their in-app stores.
FIU-IND tightened its rules for digital-asset businesses in January 2026[4], and India's August 2025 gaming law bans paid-entry games with cash-convertible prizes[7]. Both push this idea firmly toward points. Meanwhile a meta-analysis of 23 trials found small financial incentives added about 600 steps a day[8], and the DPDP Rules notified in November 2025 spell out consent for sharing health data with employers.
Nobody publishes a figure for health rewards programmes in India. The buyers sit in corporate wellness, where the estimates differ about fourfold. One market research firm puts it at US$664.5M in 2025, about ₹6,430 Cr[9], while another says US$2.60B[10].
Neither one shows its method, so treat the lower figure as a floor and as a neighbouring market, not this one.
Indian step-reward apps pay coins per thousand steps and let members spend them in a brand-funded store. They prove Indians will chase step points, though they lean on brands rather than employers. One global walking app added a crypto token and shows both the reach and the mess that comes with it. One large Indian health insurer runs its own licensed wellness programme[11].
The gap is a points engine that employers and smaller insurers can switch on without building one.
| Difficulty | Moderate (33/100) |
| Starting capital | ₹1.5–2.65 Cr |
| Time to launch | 3–5 months |
The software is standard stuff. Selling is the hard part, with HR committees, benefits brokers and procurement on one side and insurer product and compliance teams with long cycles on the other. The design also has to stay inside three legal lines at once - loyalty points for tax, free-entry challenges for gaming law and fixed rewards for IRDAI.
No health licence here. The rules that matter are tax, gaming and insurance ones, and the design has to fit them before launch.
Building this outside India? The categories above usually have a local equivalent, so check with your own regulator.
Don't let AI read health or insurance meaning into step counts. Strideperk is a wellness programme, and nobody's premium or job should hinge on its scores.
Want to work out the AI layer for Strideperk? Talk to Yash →
I think the points version is a reasonable B2B business and the crypto version is not worth the legal exposure in India today. It suits a founder who can sell to HR and benefits heads and is happy to wait on insurers. If the token is what excites you then pass. Prove first that a third of enrolled staff are still active in month three on modest reward values.
My estimate is ₹1.5–2.65 Cr to launch, covering the app, wearable integrations, a rewards catalogue and early employer sales. The kit breaks it down line by line.
No health licence, but the points must stay outside the tax definition of virtual digital assets, challenges must be free to enter, and insurer-funded rewards follow IRDAI rules.
Yes, employer wellness budgets exist in most markets. Check how local rules treat reward points, prizes and employee health data.
The free Strideperk validation kit has the line-by-line capital breakdown, the effort scoring, the tax, gaming and insurance checklist, a 14-day validation sprint with pass/fail targets, a 90-day launch plan, 10 interview questions for HR heads, and 5 assumptions to test. Download the kit →
Thinking of building Strideperk or something like it? The make-or-break bit is getting HR buyers to pay after a pilot while keeping the points design legally clean, and that's the kind of thing I help founders with. If you need a hand, you know where to find me. Talk to Yash →
For illustration only. Names are fictional and ideas hypothetical; sourced facts are real but may be out of date. Nothing here is legal, financial or professional advice, and Yash Khatri is not personally liable for any use of it. Read the full disclaimer.