Wellspring Healthcare Pvt Ltd, which operates primary healthcare clinics under the brand Healthspring Community Medical Centres, has raised Rs 22 crore ($3.7 million) in a fresh round of funding led by Anand Burman and Ajay Kumar Vij-promoted Asian Healthcare Fund (AHF). Existing investors also participated in the funding.
Healthspring raised its first round of funding worth Rs 20.5 crore in 2011 from Narayana Murthy’s personal investment fund Catamaran Ventures, Blue Cross Blue Field Venture Partners and Reliance Venture Asset Management. The first round of investment was led by Catamaran Ventures.
“We have been impressed with Healthspring’s vision to create a patient-centric primary healthcare platform, which will provide the benefits of a family doctor in a modern setting,” said Vij, CEO of Asian Healthcare Fund.
Healthspring, which employs more than 150 people, focuses on family medicine and primary healthcare besides providing routine pharmacy, radiology, pathology services and minor procedures under one roof. It currently runs eight centres in Mumbai.
The company is also looking to raise more capital by the end of the year to boost its pan-India expansion plan.
“We are looking to raise an additional Rs 50 crore by the end of this year to have 170 centres in the next three-and-a-half years,” Kaushik Sen, CEO of Healthspring, told VCCircle. It has appointed Mosaic Capital as its banker for further fundraising.
According to Sen, Healthspring will fully utilise the capital in the next three years and will raise some debt in the future as well. For expansion, the company will first focus on the six metro cities and eventually expand its footprint to tier I cities like Pune, Ahmedabad, etc., for pan-India growth.
“We will invest about Rs 40-70 lakh per centre and expand using a lease model,” said Sen.
For Asian Healthcare Fund, which was floated three years ago and recently struck its debt deal by committing Rs 40 crore in the dental care chain MyDentist, this is the second deal in as many months.
Asian Healthcare Fund is the third known PE fund where the Burman family is involved. Dabur Group scions Gaurav and Mohit Burman (they are brothers) run AIM-listed private equity fund Elephant Capital and they are also the co-promoters of GTI Capital Group.
Other funds focusing on the healthcare space include Evolvence India Life Sciences, India Venture Advisors, Somerset Capital, OrbiMed and Quadria Capital.
(Edited by Sanghamitra Mandal)
