Pristyn Care, a chain of multi-specialty clinics for planned surgeries, on Tuesday said it has acquired one of the first venture capital backed healthtech platforms in the country Lybrate.
"Lybrate makes a compelling strategic fit to give access to primary care to our patients via online consultation services," said Harsimarbir Singh, co-founder at Pristyn Care, in a statement without disclosing the financial details of the transaction.
He added that similar acquisitions will help consolidate, scale and grow healthcare delivery assets.
Last year in November, VCCircle had reported that Pristyn Care was in talks to acquire one of the most heavily venture capital (VC) -funded and popular healthcare platforms, Practo Technologies Pvt. Ltd.
As part of the transaction, Lybrate’s 150 employees will join Pristyn Care, the statement added.
Pristyn Care, operated by GHV Advanced Care Pvt. Ltd, was founded in 2018 by Singh, Vaibhav Kapoor and Garima Sawhney. The company raised its first external funding the following year from Sequoia Capital. Last year in December, Pristyn Care raised $96 million (Rs 726 crore) as part of its Series E funding round led by a clutch of investors, including Sequoia Capital and Tiger Global. The funding round was raised at a valuation of $1.4 billion, turning the healthtech startup into a unicorn.
A unicorn is a privately held startup valued at over $1 billion.
Lybrate, founded in 2013 by Saurabh Arora and Rahul Narang in 2013, was one of the first healthtech startups to attract venture capital funding. It had roped in Nexus Venture Partners as its first external investor in 2014, according to VCCEdge, the data and intelligence platform of VCCircle.
The following year, it raised $10.2 million in a Series A funding round from Tiger Global Management and Ratan Tata, chairman emeritus of Tata Sons. In 2017, it raised another small funding of $3 million, as per VCCEdge.
A majority of the venture capital money in the healthtech segment has gone into e-pharmacy firms like IPO-bound PharmEasy and doctor consultations startups like Practo. Another online health platform MediBuddy snagged $125 million in a Series C funding co-led by Quadria Capital and Lightrock India earlier in February this year.
Notably, recent layoff woes in the startup ecosystem have not escaped the healthtech space.
Last month, digital health platform Mfine laid off over 50% of its staff. This came after Mfine raised $48 million in Series C funding from new and existing investors last year.
India has more than 5,000 healthtech startups and the industry is currently pegged at $1.9 billion, according to a report last year by transaction advisory firm RBSA Advisors that cited research done by the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) and Praxis Global Alliance. This number, however, accounts for a mere 1% of the overall healthcare industry in the country.
The healthtech segment is expected to grow at a CAGR (compounded annual growth rate) of 39% to touch $5 billion by 2023 and RBSA added the segment has the potential to grow to $50 billion over the next 10-12 years.