LetsMD, a fintech startup in the healthcare space, has raised $1 million (Rs 6.5 crore) in a pre-Series A round of funding led by SRI Capital.
Existing investors Waterbridge Ventures annd ThinKuvate, a Singapore-based venture capital firm, also participated in the round.
LetsMD said in a statement that it will use the fresh infusion to scale up its operations across the country.
Operated by Medbay India Pvt. Ltd, the startup runs an online marketplace which helps patients finance elective surgeries. Customers get the option of converting their surgery bills into equated monthly installments (EMIs).
"With private insurance penetration pegged at less than 10% and healthcare inflation growing at more than 15%, financing out-of-pocket expenses will be healthcare's most important challenge in the next decade," said LetsMD's chief executive officer Nivesh Khandelwal.
The Delhi-based startup was founded by Khandelwal, Prakhar Gupta and Tenzin Thargay.
Wharton graduate Khandelwal has entreprenurial experience across the food & beverage and healthcare segments while Gupta, an alumnus of Purdue University, has had stints at startups in both Silicon Valley and India.
Thargay, a graduate of Indian Institute of Management-Bangalore, has more than a decade of experience across consumer internet and digital health platforms.
In 2016, LetsMD had raised Rs 3.4 crore (around $500,000) in angel funding at a valuation of $3-4 million in a round led by WaterBridge Ventures.
Other participants included Calcutta Angels Network (CAN), LetsVenture, People Group founder and CEO Anupam Mittal, and Currae Healthtech Fund.
LetsMD says it has partnered with more than 200 hospital and super specialty chains such as Fortis Healthcare and Max Healthcare in the Delhi-NCR region.
Investors
SRI Capital is a US-based seed-stage investor focussed on software, data, analytics and services. It invests around $500,000 typically, but can go up to $1 million.
SRI's portfolio includes startups such as FabHotels, fitness app Healthify, and software-as-a-service providers YellowDig and Zuppler.
In January, it led a $3 million (Rs 19.2 crore) investment in Bengaluru-based Suvision Holdings Pvt. Ltd, which runs personal financial advisory portal IndianMoney.com.
Last September, SRI Capital was at the forefront of a $1.5 million (around Rs 10 crore) investment in Datasigns Technologies Pvt. Ltd, which runs online lending platform Shubh Loans.
WaterBridge Ventures invests in early-stage ventures and has offices in Delhi and Bengaluru. A month ago, it led a pre-Series A round amounting to Rs 3.5 crore ($539,000) in Gurgaon-based ed-tech startup Doubtnut.
It has so far invested in at least 10 tech-focused companies across various sectors, with online lending platform ZipLoan, hyperlocal discovery and rewards platform Magicpin and online learning startup Unacademy among its portfolio firms.
