HWell24 Plus Healthcare Pvt Ltd, which operates home healthcare aggregator under the brand HealWell24, said it has raised $200,000 (Rs 1.4 crore) in its pre-Series A round of funding from new and existing individual investors.
Prashant Mehta, Mitali Pawar, Nikhil G and Bhavesh P, members of Indian Cooperative Oncology Network (ICON); and angel investor R Ranganathan are the new investors, Jyoti Kumar Singha, co-founder and director, HealWell24, said in a statement.
Existing investors a member of the oncology network in Mumbai, ONCOTRUST, and an executive at medical intelligence provider Medintel Services Pvt. Ltd also contributed funds, he added.
The firm will use the funds to develop its artificial intelligence (AI)-based patient mobile app, expand its services and hire talent, among others. The app is expected to be launched by October this year, Singha explained.
The Mumbai-based company, which was founded by Singha and Harddik K Patel in 2017, provides solutions to patients at home-to-hospital-to-home, which is known as a 3H model. The startup provides home nursing, home attendants and has recently added home dental care as part of its services in the city. It aims to expand to Delhi, Bengaluru, Nagpur, Kochi, and Pune by the financial year 2019-2020.
HealWell24 had raised $100,000 in angel funding from three high-net-worth individuals in September last year. It generated revenue of Rs 1.25 crore in the last financial year through March since it began operations in June, Singha said.
The company has also started a CHHA (Certification of Home Healthcare Attendant) programme which provides certification to all attendants as the biggest challenge for any home healthcare service is to find trained people.
The home healthcare industry is still at a nascent stage in India but some startups have already raised multiple rounds of funding.
According to estimates by market research, consulting and advisory services firm Cyber Media Research (CMR) Ltd, India’s home healthcare market was around $3.2 billion in 2016, and is expected to grow to around $4.46 billion by 2018 and $6.21 billion in 2020.
One of the prominent ventures in the space is Portea Medical Pvt. Ltd, which is owned by Bengaluru-headquartered Healthvista India Pvt. Ltd. It raised $26 million (Rs 168 crore) in a Series C round led by new investors Sabre Partners and MEMG CDC in November last year.
Other big players in the space include Medwell Ventures Pvt. Ltd, which runs home healthcare services under the brand Nightingales, and Quadria Capital Advisors Pvt. Ltd-backed Health Care At Home India.
MyCareLine, Care24, Zoctr and Healers At Home are among the other funded startups in the home healthcare space.