Healthcare Membership Startup Even Raises $5 Mn From Khosla Ventures, Founders Fund

Healthcare startup Even announced today that it has raised $5 Mn in seed round led by Khosla Ventures, with participation from Founders Fund (led by Peter Thiel), Lachy Groom, and other investors and operators, including Palo Alto Networks CEO Nikesh Arora, Cred CEO Kunal Shah, Zerodha Founder Nithin Kamath and DST Global partner Tom Stafford.

The Bengaluru-based healthcare startup was founded by Mayank Banerjee, Matilde Giglio, and Alessandro Davide Ialongo. Even is a healthcare membership company that is working towards making hospitals more accessible by acting as a service provider, and therefore, driving down the cost of care.  It primarily works in the health insurance space. 

The company is gearing up to launch in the fourth quarter of this year with more than 5,000 people on the waitlist so far. Its health membership product will cost around $200 per year for a person aged 18 to 35 and covers features such as unlimited consultations with primary care doctors, diagnostics and scans.

The company stated that it intends to deploy the funds to build out their operational team, product and integration with hospitals. Currently, it claims that it is working with 100 hospitals and has secured a partnership with Narayana Hospital to deliver COVID vaccinations.

“We intend to go live in Bengaluru this year, grow our customer base in the city, and bring in India’s best hospitals and labs in our network. At the same time, we are working towards expanding into other Tier I cities in India. We are constantly working towards building features into our product that serve our members and remove any friction in joining our membership service,” the startup stated.

As per data from the company, private individual insurance penetration was abysmally low: less than 1% (2017) compared to roughly 68% in developed countries like the US. 

Moreover, Indians still paid 60% of their total health expenses out of their pockets. A 2018 study found that this out-of-pocket health spending pushed 55 Mn people into poverty in the previous year.

Amidst the Covid19 pandemic, the Indian healthcare sector experienced a lot of changes in order to tackle the rising number of changes. These changes and developments came from both the government as well as Indian startups. For instance, Bengaluru-based Dozee was helping reduce the burden on the hospitals with its healthtech platform that converts normal beds into a mini ICU bed.

Some positives for the sector in 2020 included the government’s decision to roll out the National Digital Health Mission and telemedicine guidelines which helped healthtech startups to come up with online accessibility of quality treatment for both Covid and non-Covid health issues. The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDAI) too issued a notification advising insurers to allow telemedicine to be covered under health insurance programmes. The telemedicine facility could help Indians save about $10 Bn by 2025.