Medical content startup myUpchar has raised Rs 2 crore ($300,000) in seed funding from a clutch of investors through online deal-making platform LetsVenture, a company statement said.
The investors were Rajan Anandan, managing director at Google India; Alok Mittal, co-founder and chief executive of lending startup Indifi; Mohit Satyanand, founder of ed-tech venture Teamwork Arts; and Currae Healthtech Fund, which was founded by Apoorva Patni, son of Patni Computer Systems co-founder Ashok Patni.
MyupChar, which provides health-related content in Hindi currently, plans to use the capital to add content in 5-6 other regional languages.
The portal, launched in December 2016, claims its traffic stands at 2.5 million views a month. It also claims to be growing 30% month on month.
"Digital health initiatives will do a great deal to improve the health of our population. Among these, I believe the first link is the most important, of providing instant access to basic medical information,†said Satyanand.
The company was founded by Stanford University alumni Rajat Garg and Manuj Garg. Rajat is a serial entrepreneur, having founded e-commerce startup Shimply and media marketing firm SocialAppsHQ. Manuj had previously worked with Boston Consulting Group and also founded ad startup Scribble Design.
“There are 350 million online consumers of which 200 million consume content in vernacular languages. This number is expected to grow 2.5x in next 5 years. One of the core areas of interest for the online consumer is to research healthcare. However, quality healthcare content is virtually absent in vernacular languages,†said Rajat.
Several content-based startups have come up in the recent past, targeting different aspects of health and wellness. Most of them employ a content-first strategy to drive traffic onto their platform, and look to monetise through advertisements and sale of related products and services.
Sepalika, a healthcare content platform that offers information on diet, lifestyle changes and supplements, raised $750,000 (Rs 4.8 crore) in seed funding led by venture capital firm Accel Partners in April.
Another startup in the medical content field is Omnicuris, which primarily offers video content on various medical specialties, such as cardiology, endocrinology and gynaecology.