YC Backed Healthtech Startup Breathe Well-Being Raises $5.5 Mn Led By Accel

Digital healthtech platform Breathe Well-Being has raised $5.5 Mn in its Series A round, led by Accel. The round also saw participation from General Catalyst, 3one4 Capital and Scott Shleifer, the global managing director of New York-based investment firm Tiger Global. The company is also backed by Y Combinator.

According to a statement from the company, it will use the newly acquired capital in building out product development functionalities and expanding the team across various functions. 

Prior to this round, BW had also raised $1 Mn in pre-Series A round led by 3one4 Capital, back in June, 2021. 

Founded by former ClassHop founders Rohan Verma and Aditya Kaicker in 2020, BW offers its services to small and medium organisations through a holistic well-being programme with an aim to revitalise employees’ mind and body. BW’s proprietary well-being programme deploys gamification and an integrated rewards platform to drive engagement and connectivity among the employees.

Via its mobile app, the employees get to participate with each other in a variety of activities and track their personal health statistics. The employers can track the impact of the programme through a proprietary index. 

The company also has a clinically proven digital programme which uses a personalised coach-driven, community-first approach to help people with Type 2 Diabetes reduce blood sugar levels, lose weight and stop medication eventually. 

The company stated that Breathe’s Diabetes Reversal Program has resulted in more than 95% patients showing HbA1c (three-month average blood sugar readings) reduction of more than 10% and more than 90% patients with completely stopped or reduced medications. In the long-term, Breathe wants to extend its digital therapeutic offerings to other chronic conditions, such as hypertension, PCOS, gut disorders, etc.

Similar to BW, another company that provides diabetes solutions and that  recently raised funding is BeatO. It had raised INR 42 Cr (roughly $5.8 Mn) in funding led by US-based venture capital firm W Health Ventures. The funding also saw participation from healthtech unicorn PharmEasy, Merisis VP and existing investors Orios VP, Leo Capital and others.

Fitterfly is another such company that recently raised $3.1 Mn in a Pre-Series A round led by Fireside Ventures. 

The pandemic has exponentially increased the importance of quality healthcare remotely and through digital platforms. Further, the number of health conscious users have increased rapidly. The lion’s share of this year’s healthtech funding was cornered by two unicorn rounds. Innovaccer got $105 Mn in February this year and PharmEasy raised $350 Mn in April to enter the coveted unicorn club.

The Indian healthtech market is estimated to touch $21 Bn by 2025, which is just 3.3% of the total addressable healthcare market pegged to reach $638 Bn in 2025. While healthtech startup funding in FY21 (April’20 to March’21) went down by more than 43% ($443 Mn raised in FY21 compared to FY20’s $790 Mn), with $689 Mn invested during the first four months of 2021, the sector has already raised 30% more funding than the entire 2020.

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