Early-stage investor Inflection Point Ventures has led a $1 million (Rs 7.5 crore) pre-Series A round of funding in mobile-first healthcare services platform Phable.
The company said in a statement it will mainly use the funding to expand its operations to 12 cities by the end of this year from three currently—Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Chandigarh.
“IPV, with its vast investor base of CXOs from diverse industries including healthcare, will provide Phable access to a large unexplored market base and help expand its network exponentially,” said Mitesh Shah, co-founder of IPV, an investment fund floated by a group of chief financial officers and finance executives working at Indian startups.
Phable, owned by Bengaluru-based Terrals Technologies Pvt. Ltd, offers a slew of services to patients, doctors and hospitals through its app. It helps patients manage chronic ailments with a compliance mechanism that alerts them on the intake of medication, lab tests and doctor visits. It also uses artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities to offer targeted tips to address patients’ ailments and helps physicians offer the right advice to patients.
The startup aims to create a medical Internet of Things universe by integrating a multitude of healthcare devices to its app. These could include fitness wearables, blood pressure monitors and glucometers. The app will collect patient data from these devices and offer a health metric summary to doctors.
For hospitals, Phable converts physical prescription notes into a digital format. Based on the prescriptions, the app enables lab tests and medicine delivery with its partner network of clinics and online pharmacies.
The startup has also tied up with insurance firms to enable insurance covers to patients. It works on a revenue share model with these partners.
Phable was founded in 2017 by Sumit Sinha, Prashanth Reddy and Mukesh Bansal, all former executives at market research firm Borderless Access.
Sinha previously co-founded Kristys Kitchen, a full-stack online food delivery company in Bengaluru. Kristys Kitchen was acquired by healthcare platform CureFit in March 2017.
An alumnus of IIIT Calcutta, Reddy previously worked with Dexterity and Course5. Bansal, a graduate of BITS Pilani, spent over seven years at Kantar Operations before moving to BA.
Phable had previously raised $150,000 from US-headquartered venture capital firm SOSV last year. Prior to that, it secured $300,000 from early-stage investment firm OmphalosVenture India LLP and a few angel investors.
Inflection Point Ventures
The community is a sub-initiative of CXO Genie. It was founded in 2017 by nine CFOs and finance professionals hailing from startups such as Myntra, BookMyShow and Grofers. The by-invitation-only network connects the investor community with startups. It largely makes early-stage bets and goes up to the pre-Series A levels.
Its portfolio includes Kolkata-based rural health-focussed startup iKure, Delhi-based virtual assistant provider Wishup, Noida-based sports app Sportido and Singapore-based retinal diagnostic startup Leben Care Technologies.
In January, it invested $150,000 in Trustmore Technologies Pvt. Ltd, which operates escrow-focussed digital payments platform Escrowffrr.
In October last year, co-founder Ankur Mittal told VCCircle that it had invested in 22 companies over the previous 18 months. Most investments had been made in India while some were in Singapore, the UK and the US.
Health-tech investments
The broader health-technology segment has seen a significant increase in investor attention over the past couple of years. These startups have continued to attract investors even during the last couple of months when dealmaking has been generally slow because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Last month, Akna Medical Pvt. Ltd, which operates a healthcare supply chain, raised around Rs 54 crore in a Series A funding round from LGT Lightstone Aspada. In March, women’s healthcare platform Zealthy and medical healthcare records platform MedCords secured funding cheques.
In February, Mumbai-based Qure.ai Technologies Pvt. Ltd raised Rs 115 crore in a round led by Sequoia Capital while healthcare data analytics startup Innovaccer Inc. scooped up nearly Rs 500 crore from investors including Tiger Global and WestBridge Capital.