Healthtech Startup Credihealth Raises $1.5 Mn From Tolaram Inc, Mountain Pine Capital

Gurugram-based medical assistance company Credihealth has raised $1.5 Mn in a Pre-Series A funding round from Tolaram Inc., the family office investment arm of Tolaram Group and Mountain Pine Capital. Bala Swaminathan, ex-KPMG Partner and one of the earliest investors in the platform, has invested in this round as well.

Sasha Breen of Mountain Pine Capital said, “Credihealth has a robust business model, a consumer-centric approach and is backed by a superior team and tech infrastructure. We are determined to help in developing India’s healthcare industry by helping the company build on its expertise and expand the consumer base with its dynamic offerings.”

Ravi Virmani, Gaurav Gaggar and Saurabh Uboweja founded Credihealth in 2013 with an aim to be the first port of call for customers having healthcare-related needs, doubts, or queries. The portal provides personalised guidance in hospitalisation services to patients with the help of in-house doctors to sort out queries and questions of the patients. It leverages technology to offer complete support for all the medical needs of its consumers.

Commenting on the platform’s use case, co-founder Ravi Virmani said, “Credihealth stands for Credible Healthcare Information and Delivery. Due to lack of transparency in the Indian healthcare system, patients have to run from pillar to post for finding relevant information that can help in decision-making. Credihealth ensures that the patients get credible and trustworthy information, empowering them to make an informed decision.”

An interested user can reach them via their website or healthline, or through live chats on website or on Whatsapp. A Credihealth user can access verified information on hospitals and doctors, compare customer feedback, and get cost estimates. Each consumer is assigned a Credihealth Medical Expert who personally understands the medical symptoms and offers the most appropriate options. Patients and their families can then book an appointment with the right medical specialist and also get a second opinion through the platform.

Current Status And Future Plans

After growing exponentially within three years of inception, Credihealth claims to have already achieved break even and has been maintaining a positive cash flow since early stages of starting up, as per an official statement. With an M-o-M growth rate of 15% to 18%, the company has earned $930K (INR 6 Cr) revenue and generated gross revenues of $7.75 Mn (INR 50 Cr) for hospitals up to FY 2016-17.

“2014, our year of inception, was a tough year for us. Hospitals were of the view that they are and will continue to be a seller’s market. I was told only adult content, ecommerce and stocks are searched on the Internet in India. Traditional and archaic attitudes and outdated practices were the toughest challenges we faced when establishing Credihealth,” said Ravi. When asked about the competition, he believes that there are a few startups coming up in the tertiary healthcare space. To name a few, LetsMD, Surgivisor and PSTakeCare are focussing on the hospital segment.

With a team size of 60, the startup has tie-ups with over 630 hospitals in Tier I as well as Tier II geographies, and has partnerships with hospital brands such as Fortis, Medanta, Columbia Asia, BLK, Paras, Artemis, etc. Since launching in January 2014, Credihealth claims to have served more than 350,000 patients, has a panel of 30, 000 specialist doctors, and has served across 10 cities in India like: Delhi, Gurugram, Noida, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune, Chennai.

The company also claims to have more than 600K monthly unique visitors on the website, 2.5 Mn+ page views along with 1,200 articles and 250 doctor videos on the Credihealth blog.

The funding will primarily be utilised to augment technology and infrastructure to expand services and introduce new products. Also, Credihealth aims to expand operations and fund new services to address the non-clinical pain points of patients. Earlier in September 2015, the startup had secured an undisclosed amount of strategic investment from Rajat Malhotra, Director of Engineering at Twitter India. “More than money, it is innovation and steady growth that are needed to survive in the market today. Most importantly, the guidance and mentorship of our investors is what we are looking forward to, for sustained the evolution of Credihealth,” says Ravi.

2017 has proven to be a good year till date for the healthcare segment. For Q1 2017, in terms of deals, healthtech demonstrated a growth of almost 100% as compared to Q4 2016, as per an Inc42 DataLabs report. Also, healthtech startups received as much as 7x funding, as compared to Q4 2016. A major deal included here is Practo, which raised $55 Mn at the start of the year. Other healthtech startups that have attracted investor attention in the past few quarters are Oxa Medical, SigTuple, Healthians, AlternaCare, CureFit, Celes Care and more.