Akna Medical Bags $7 Mn From LGT Lightstone To Streamline Medical Supply Chain

B2B healthtech startup Akna Medical has raised $7 Mn (INR 54 Cr) in a funding round from India-focussed impact investment arm of LGT Lightstone — LGT Lightstone Aspada.

With this funding, Akna Medical is planning to invest over $20 Mn to scale up its operations across India within the next two years. The startup is also planning to enhance technology aisle and analytics offerings.

Founded in 2018 by Saurabh Pandey and Mahadevan Narayanamoni, Akna Medical aims to streamline the delivery of healthcare equipment in India. The company is solving the lack of transparency in the product movement and consumption of healthcare products by leveraging data and analytics.

The company using a proprietary analytics platform SmartBuy to offer category-specific procurement solutions to major healthcare organisations across categories such as surgical equipment and pharmaceutical products.

Hospital chains such as Max Healthcare, Fortis, Medanta and Cloudnine are some of the notable clients of the company. The company has also partnered with leading manufacturers of medical equipment and pharma players.

Investors Bullish On Heathtech Startup

In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, investors are bullish on startups in the healthcare sector. In a recent conversation with Inc42, 3One4 Capital founding partner Siddarth Pai said that healthtech startups are stepping in and aiding the traditional healthcare system to take on coronavirus.

In India, the healthtech sector recorded total funding of $586.93 Mn in 2019, an increase of over 10% in the amount of funding from the previous year, according to DataLabs by Inc42. However, given the recent trends, this number is expected to grow many times in 2020, leveraging new-age technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and internet of things (IoT) to develop solutions. Pai had also noted that startups leveraging these technologies are going to be on the healthtech investor’s watchlist for 2020.

Recently, Bengaluru-based healthtech startup MedGenome has raised $55 Mn in a fresh funding round led by LeapFrog Investments with the participation of existing investors Sequoia Capital and Sofina.

Prior to this, Pune-based MyLabs has also received a grant of INR 1 Cr from Action Covid-19 Team (ACT). It is worth mentioning that MyLab was the first company to develop an indigenous Covid-19 testing kit.

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