Sachin Tendulkar, PV Sindhu, Others Look To Back Healthcare Startup Of Satyam Founder Ramalinga Raju’s Kin

Sachin Tendulkar, badminton player PV Sindhu, her coach and former badminton player Pullela Gopichand are in talks to invest have invested in a $6.2 Mn funding round in Hyderabad-based startup CallHealth. CallHealth is a healthcare services aggregator.

As per documents filed with the RoC while master blaster Sachin Tendulkar is looking to invest has invested $1.88 Mn (INR 12 Cr), PV Sindhu and Gopichand are planning to out in have invested about $625K (INR 4 Cr) each. A Hyderabad-based IT services company, Tetra Soft India has also proposed a invested about $1.25 Mn (INR 8 Cr) investment. While Bijman Projects Pvt. Ltd is looking to contribute has contributed $1.56 Mn (INR 10 Cr) to the round.

CallHealth was founded in 2013 by Sandhya Raju. Sandhya is the daughter-in-law of Satyam founder Ramalinga Raju. She is the daughter of  Ramco group chairman PR Venketrama Raja. The startup is led by Hari Thalapalli who was earlier associated with Satyam Computers.

CallHealth is a tech platform that provides healthcare services at user’s doorstep. CallHealth provides doctor consultations, medicines delivery, diagnostic tests, nursing care and physiotherapy, etc.through a team of specialists and trained medical health officers.

Currently, the company has a presence in Delhi-NCR apart from Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.

Earlier, in 2016 the healthcare startup managed to aggregate about INR 57.52 Cr. The round saw investment from Telugu film actors Chiranjeevi Konidela, Nagarjuna Akkineni and Allu Arjun, among others.

According to an IBEF report, the overall Indian healthcare market is poised at $100 Bn. It is expected to touch $280 Bn by 2020, growing at a CAGR of 22.9%. As per Inc42 Datalabs, healthtech startups cumulatively raised $195 Mn funding in 55 deals, during the first half of 2017. Earlier this month, Gurugram-based digital healthcare platform 1mg acquired Varanasi-based Dawailelo.com.

This is not the first time that Sachin Tendulkar has invested in a startup. In August 2016, he launched his premium men’s wear brand, True Blue, on Flipkart-owned Myntra. In April 2016, Tendulkar invested in Bengaluru-based Internet of Things (IoT) company Smartron India, and also became the brand ambassador of the company. He also owns a 7.5% stake in Musafir, a UAE-based online travel company. He also holds stakes in brands like S Drive (healthcare and fitness products maker), Sach and Universal Collectabilia (India’s first celebrity-commerce company).

With the backing of famous sports person like Sachin Tendulkar, PV Sindhu and Pullela Gopichand contributing to its funding round, CallHEalth will strive to become a recognised name. On its expansion journey to other parts of India the startup will compete against other players in the healthcare space like NetMeds, CareOnGo, Practo, etc.

(The development was reported by TOI)

Update: Friday, September 15th, 2017 (4:30 pm)

After the publication of this article, the CallHealth team reached out to us about the investment. Satish K, CFO, CallHealth Services said, “Mr. Tendulkar & Ms. PV Sindhu have not made any investments into CallHealth pursuant to the filing of the EGM notice which is mandatory for resultant changes in the shareholding pattern. The report filed by the news agency has only taken into account the EGM notice in isolation and hence filed an incomplete and factually incorrect report basis publicly available documents while ignoring the EGM MOM and the PAS3 which gave an update of the EGM and decisions made thereof.”