Hyderabad-based Celes Care a digital healthcare startup has raised about $1.5 Mn Pre Series A funding from Ventureast, Endiya Partners, Eight Roads Ventures, and F-Prime Capital Partners. Dr. Varaprasad Reddy and other prominent investors also participated in this round.
The startup has also launched a virtual health clinic for women today. Founded by Silicon Valley entrepreneur, Raghu Bathina and Dr. Rajah Koppala in 2015, the company aims to provide telehealth services to women of all ages.
Raghu Bathina, CEO of Celes Care said, “We are extremely delighted to launch Celes Care, a complete telehealth platform for women. In today’s stress-filled society and workplace, women must have an avenue where they can get their health issues addressed, conveniently and privately. We, at Celes Care, are committed to revolutionise health care accessibility via our unique combination of deep medical expertise and technology innovation.”
The startup addresses women’s health issues like fertility, pregnancy, thyroid, PCOS, weight control, menopause, etc. It allows users to connect with a trained female physician in less than a minute. The company claims to have helped over 6,000 women during the pilot phase.
The startup will use the newly raised funds for R&D around telehealth apps and devices, and for outreach to more B2C and B2B customers.
Venkatadri Bobba, Partner at Ventureast said, “Digital Health will radically change healthcare in the next 10 years in India by improving access to care and patient outcomes at less than half the cost. We are very bullish about the sector. We are honoured to have the guru of Digital Health and Genomics, Dr. Steven Steinhubl, join the board of Celes because of his strong belief in telehealth for India.”
Currently, with a 25-member team Celes Care is eyeing a pan India offering of Celes services. It also plans to hire more doctors from all around India.
As per Inc42, 2016 saw 90 startups being funded in the healthtech space with a total $129.85 Mn flowing in, till October 2016. In January 2017, Bengaluru-based online healthcare platform Practo raised $55 Mn Series D funding in a round led by Tencent. Other startups in this segment include Lybrate, Ziffi, Zoctr, etc.
