by HealthPlix, an Indian start-up that offers its in-house platform for doctors to digitally capture patient data, has raised $22 million in new investments to expand its reach in the country and enable more doctors to use its software to help to offer better care to their patients.
Around 300,000 doctors regularly practice medicine in India. However, that number seems tiny compared to the country’s rapidly growing population. This has resulted in physicians not finding enough time to adequately assess each patient. HealthPlix aims to solve this problem through its platform, available in a freemium model.
The Bengaluru-based startup enables doctors to create a 360-degree medical profile of their patients, which can be helpful in consultations and in the management of chronic diseases. The platform also provides physicians with a collective intelligence that helps them understand characteristics, e.g. B. which diseases occur in which areas and which treatment regimens are used by different patients and doctors.
“We help doctors diagnose diseases earlier than usual by being their true assistant,” said Sandeep Gudibanda, co-founder and CEO of HealthPlix, in an interview with TechCrunch.
Founded in 2017, the startup has already supported more than 10,000 doctors who treat 2.5% of the country’s total population with the proprietary software. It aims to serve over 25,000 doctors by 2024 and reach 50,000 by 2025 to treat nearly 15% of India’s population. According to HealthPlix, of the total number of doctors on board, 70% are located outside of metropolitan areas.
According to Gudibanda, HealthPlix treats a volume of 110,000 patients per day and has facilitated over 70 million consultations to date. The platform reaches about 334 cities in 28 states nationwide.
Although the electronic medical record (EMR) platform market in India has a number of players all claiming to help physicians treat their patients efficiently, HealthPlix believes its doctor-first approach gives it an edge over the competition .
“Every time you make a decision, whether it’s a small feature, a revenue opportunity, a tech stack, or any other decision you make, do you put the doctors first?” asked Chaitanya Raju, Executive Director at HealthPlix.
The startup targets physicians who own clinics and are looking for new solutions to increase efficiency. This helps them reach a wider reach as the country’s healthcare is mainly provided in small clinics and nursing homes instead of the large hospitals that Indian patients usually go to when their symptoms and illness have worsened.
HealthPlix not only offers a digital solution for medical history taking and consultations, but uses AI to make it easier for doctors to write prescriptions and search for suitable medications and diagnoses. The use of AI also accelerates the identification of patients based on their medical data and helps define critical items that may be relevant to the patient or help the doctor during treatment.
With HealthPlix, doctors can write a long prescription of say 100 characters in just eight clicks, rather than writing those characters manually, Raju said. In addition, the platform offers prescription translation so that patients can easily understand what their doctors have prescribed for them.
Approximately 60% of prescriptions processed by HealthPlix are originally written by doctors in English. However, once printed, the prescriptions are automatically translated into the patient’s local language, Gudibanda said.
All data available in the software is fully encrypted, and the startup’s modeling is based only on anonymized data, Raju said.
The Series C round, led by Avataar Venture Partners and SIG Venture Capital, is split into a $20 million equity raise and $2 million in debt. Existing investors including Lightspeed Venture Partners, JSW Ventures, Kalaari Capital and Chiratae Ventures also attended.
“We’ve seen many business models that didn’t scale in the health tech ecosystem, and we believe Sandeep has built a great team to deliver on the promise of HealthPlix,” said Mohan Kumar, investment advisor at Avataar Venture Partners, in a prepared statement statement.
HealthPlix intends to use 80% of its new funding to expand its physician base and invest more in sales, product and development teams. The startup currently has 392 employees. It will also invest in clinical decision support to help doctors treat patients better. In addition, it plans to examine some models to see how it can disrupt the insurance and payer sides, Gudibanda said.
“We invested in HealthPlix to advance the team’s vision to be the active catalyst for adoption of healthcare technologies by enabling physicians to be more productive and thereby achieve better patient outcomes,” said Bhavani Rana, Investment Advisor at SIG Venture Capital.
Gudibanda said the startup’s revenue grew 3.5 times in the last year and is expected to grow 2.5-3 times next year. To date, HealthPlix has raised approximately $36 million. The valuation after the last financing was not disclosed.
