SUMMARY
myUpchar will use the funding to develop its product and technology
The app provides health information in regional languages
The startup aims to provide healthcare in remote areas that lack services
Delhi-based healthcare startup myUpchar has raised $5 Mn from Nexus Venture Partners, Omidyar Network, and Shunwei Capital in the Series A funding round.
myUpchar was founded in 2016 by Rajat Garg and Manuj Garg when they realised that there was a serious lack of Indian health content in India. It offers information on various disciplines such as allopathy, ayurveda, and homoeopathy.
The startup aims to use the funding to develop its product and technology offering. It will further strengthen its voice, video, and virtual reality interfaces and also work on the development of newer interfaces. The funding will also help myUpchar make large-scale remote provisions of health services a reality, said the founders in a media statement.
In a recent interaction with Inc42, Garg said, “We look to create trustworthy content to make sure that they (consumers) can rely on us for a long time. A lot of sites create lightweight health content in India now which is medically incorrect. Our content is created by doctors and experts which is then translated by our team into various languages.”
A One-Stop Destination For All Healthcare Needs
myUpchar has partnered with doctors to create credible and authoritative health content in 13 different languages for the Indian market.
It’s proprietary voice search, as well as text-to-speech technology for all health content, has enabled it to serve customers who are not comfortable with typing or reading the content on a phone.
It also has hundreds of partner doctors across specialities who serve several thousand patient queries every day. These consultations are conducted in a simple interface to make sure the consulting product is accessible to customers with any level of comfort with technology.
“myUpchar has the potential to solve for health information and infrastructure asymmetry for the masses, closely aligned with the government’s National Health Protection Mission,” said Siddharth Nautiyal, investment partner at Omidyar Network.
myUpchar Looks To Serve 500 Mn People
At present, the services of myUpchar are accessed by more than 10 Mn people. According to the founders, the startup aims to provide healthcare awareness and access across a wide socio-economic spectrum in India.
The startup is looking to grow its presence and expects to serve more than 500 Mn Indians who want quality information and services but are unable to access them either because they are not available locally or are not available in regional languages.
“We have a unique opportunity to solve the acute awareness and access problem in the healthcare space. Our focus over the next couple of years is to address this gap via technology and content. As our technology gets smarter and smarter, we will personalise every user’s experience to enhance our ability to have a real impact on their health outcomes,” said Garg.
The overall healthcare market in India is pegged at $30 Bn and is at present attracting attention from investors’ globally. According to Inc42 DataLabs, healthtech startups raised $180 Mn in H12018 and the sector was among the top five in terms of fundraising.
Other prominent players in the Indian healthcare content space are Healthifyme, 1mg, Practo, Couch to 5K, and Medinfi, among others.
