Y Combinator Graduate Digi-Prex Raises $5.5 Mn Seed Funding

Hyderabad-headquartered healthtech startup Digi-Prex has raised $5.5 Mn in a seed funding round. The company said that the funds have come in from Khosla Ventures, Y Combinator, Quiet Capital, SV Angel, and Justin Mateen, cofounder of Tinder.

Interestingly, Digi-Prex has just graduated from Y Combinator’s Summer 2019 Batch. The company said that the fresh funds will help it expand its business to 10 cities in India and find ways to be more useful to the patients.

Founded by Samarth Sindhi in 2019, Digi-Prex is an online subscription pharmacy for patients with chronic diseases in India. The company claims to use artificial intelligence to provide customised lifestyle management solutions for patients with chronic diseases allowing them to have access to a holistic solution at one location.

The company shares some margin with physicians and pharmacies as it works directly with medicine distributors to secure supplies at lower costs. It then undercuts the pricing of over-the-top counters, providing medicines to its customers at discounted rates.

Digi-Prex is reportedly working on providing patients with access to better physicians and offering them more information about their disease among other services.

Every year, Y Combinator accelerates two startup batches and invests $150K each in them. Started in 2005 by Paul Graham, Jessica Livingston, Trevor Blackwell and Robert Tappan Morris, YC has funded over 1.9K startups with a portfolio of startups such as Airbnb, Dropbox, Quora and Reddit. The combined valuation of YC-funded startups has reached over $100 Bn.

Till date, Y Combinator has invested in multiple Indian startups including, ClearTax, RazorPay, Meesho, etc. Recently, Y Combinator’s new president, Geoff Ralston said that India is undergoing an S-curve in the development of the market. “This means there will be brand new opportunities here which we didn’t think of before. This is perfect for startups,” he added.

Further, he also agreed that the quality of startups has improved in India. “It just takes a while sometimes for the culture and the ecosystem around entrepreneurship to grow. And I think that’s happening in India. I think there’s more opportunity in the Indian market itself, ”he added.

Healthcare in India is expected to be a $372 Bn industry by 2022. With the proliferation of the number of startups in India, this segment has also seen the rise of niche sectors, which amounted to more than 4,800 active healthtech startups in the country.

As of now, healthtech comprises a number of sub-sectors, primary being discovery, appointment booking, lab diagnosis, epharmacy, fitness, home healthcare, and medical devices. Also, the use of technologies like Big Data, AI, and machine learning as well as virtual assistants is propelling this industry forward reaching a larger chunk of consumers. Apart from 1MG, other companies which have achieved success are Practo, 1MG, NetMeds, and Pharmeasy.

According to DataLabs by Inc42, healthtech startups have raised $1.9 Bn across 405 deals between 2014-H1 2019.