Healthtech Startup BeatO Acquires Novique Health To Help Indians Reverse Diabetes

In India, around 77 Mn people suffer from diabetes and another 80 Mn are pre-diabetic. It is a leading cause of several fatal health complications which requires people to continuously monitor and regulate their sugar levels. To aid the fight against diabetes through the reduction and reversal, BeatO, a chronic healthcare management startup, has acquired diabetes reversal firm Novique Health for an undisclosed amount.

Following the acquisition, Novique will merge into BeatO and the diabetes reversal programme will be called Novique by BeatO, Gautam Chopra, cofounder and CEO, BeatO, told Inc42. Novique’s founder Rahul Rosha will become a part of the management team and drive the entire vertical along with Novique’s team on behalf of BeatO.

“It will basically become an important vertical within BeatO — while BeatO brings affordability, awareness, lifestyle products, Novique and the entire staff, the health coaches, behavioural scientists, doctors who will report to Rahul, will drive the diabetes reduction and reversal programmes,” Chopra informed.

“BeatO has evolved to now become a full-stack solution for everything that a person with diabetes might require in the life cycle — starting with monitoring, basic education and coaching for individuals to management and control and now medical reversal,” he added.

Aims To Address Root Cause Of Diabetes

Founded in 2016, Novique is a speciality clinic that focuses on the treatment and reversal of Type 2 diabetes. Rosha, who has worked with Blue Cross, Northwell Health, Booz Allen, and Virta – a leading diabetes reversal company in the US, brings 20+ years of experience and research.

Through a clinical study, Novique demonstrated that 60% of its members on a 10-week programme reduced their HbA1c (amount of blood sugar attached to haemoglobin) to normal range; 100% of the members on insulin reduced or completely eliminated insulin usage and 67% achieved significant weight loss. The programme helps patients reverse diabetes by addressing the root cause of diabetes (insulin resistance and carbohydrate intolerance) and not just the symptom of the disease (high blood sugar).

Founded in 2015 by Yash Sehgal, Abhishek Kumar and Gautam Chopra, BeatO offers a digital care ecosystem for chronic condition management. Through a mobile app, the startup offers a comprehensive diabetes management and care platform via its glucose-monitoring solutions. It also offers diabetes-specific products such as snacks, speciality food and footwear, besides a marketplace of doctors, educators, diagnostics, medicines refills and insurance products.

Talking about the growth of the company, Chopra added, “BeatO has a 600K+ registered user base where about 300K are paid. These are individuals who are monitoring as well as enrolled into some of the other management or control programmes that we provide. We are presently growing at about 15 to 20% m-on-m. In terms of ARR, we are over $10 Mn right now.”

The healthtech startup recently raised almost INR 75 Cr from Pharmeasy and others and claims to have 500,000 app installs overall.

An Exciting Time For Digital Healthcare

“Largely, there haven’t been many consolidations in the healthtech ecosystem except for the transactional businesses like Pharmeasy. But now, we’re seeing some consolidation in digital health and healthtech businesses providing more seamlessness towards different cohorts or segments of customers,” Chopra added that it’s an exciting time for healthtech as the more startups and founders start entering into this space, it will be beneficial for the industry as the market tends to expand with new solutions coming in from new fresh minds, like Novique.

Healthtech startups are witnessing a huge surge in demand for telemedicine, video consultation and remote patient monitoring services as a growing number of patients and doctors are opting for virtual consultations over physical visits.

According to Inc42+’ ‘India’s Healthtech Landscape In A Post-Covid-19 World Report 2020’, the pandemic has exponentially increased the importance of quality healthcare. The healthtech market size in India is expected to be worth $25 Bn by 2025.

Further, the report revealed that preventive healthcare in the country is expected to reach a market size of $170 Bn by 2025, primarily driven by fitness and wellness apps and diagnostics solutions.

Another report by Inc42+ reveals that Indian healthtech startups from January to August 2021 received 2.3x higher capital ($950 Mn) compared to 2020 ($404 Mn), for the same period), with 75 total investments led by healthtech SaaS and online pharmacy.

Recently, fitness and wellness startup Cult.fit also forayed into diabetes management with an investment in Bengaluru-based healthtech startup Sugar.fit. Sugar.fit helps users monitor their glucose levels, provides health consultations, personalized care meals, and stress relief & exercise plans.