Medwell Ventures Pvt. Ltd, which operates Nightingales Home Health Services Pvt. Ltd, has raised $21 million (around Rs 136.7 crore) in a Series B funding round led by Mahindra Partners, the private equity arm of Mahindra Group.
Existing investors, Eight Roads Ventures (earlier Fidelity Growth Partners India) and US-based F-Prime Capital Partners, along with early angel investors and the founders also participated in this funding round, the firm said in a statement.
VCCircle first reported in August last year that Medwell Ventures had hired an investment bank for its fresh round of funding.
Medwell Ventures was started by Vishal Bali, former group CEO of Fortis Healthcare, and Ferzaan Engineer, former CEO of Quintiles India, in 2014.
In the same year, it had acquired Nightingales Home Health Services, which was led by Lalit Pai, to get a bigger foothold in the industry. Nightingales has been in the home-health sector since 1996 in Bangalore.
“Over the last two years, we have not only scaled our presence in multiple cities but have also built a strong foundation for rapid expansion... this investment will accelerate our growth in the next four years," said Lalit Pai, CEO, Nightingales Home Health Services.
Medwell Ventures currently has 13 branches spread across Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Pune compared with a single branch in Bangalore in 2014. It plans to build its network across 10 metro clusters in India, the statement said.
Its expansion so far has been funded by a $10 million Series A round led by Eight Roads Ventures in May 2015. With the latest investment, the company has cumulatively raised about $35 million across its seed, Series A and Series B rounds, the statement said.
Medwell Ventures plans to support more than 1 million patients in the next few years. It offers services for chronic diseases such as congestive heart failure, stroke management, chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases (COPD), diabetes, dementia, Alzheimer’s disease and arthritis.
For Mahindra Partners, which was founded in 2009, this is its first investment in the healthcare space.
"The demand for home delivery of chronic care services is slated to continue to increase. The healthcare sector has tremendous growth potential and we will continue to play a more active role in the industry," said Zhooben Bhiwandiwala, president, Mahindra Partners.
Most of its portfolio companies are Mahindra group firms, including Mahindra Logistics and Mahindra Water Utilities. Last year, it closed a fresh round of financing in San Francisco-based urban mobility solutions provider Scoot Networks.
Other deals in the space
This is the second deal in three days in the home healthcare space. Early on Monday, healthcare-focused private equity firm Quadria Capital Advisors Pvt. Ltd said it has committed to a milestone-based investment of up to $40 million in Burman family-backed home healthcare provider Health Care At Home India.
Bangalore-based Portea Medical, which is owned by Healthvista India Pvt. Ltd, raised $37.5 million (around Rs 247 crore) in a Series B round of funding led by existing investor Accel Partners and IFC, among others in September 2015.
MyCareLine, Care24 and Healers At Home are among the other funded startups in the home healthcare space.
India’s home healthcare industry was worth $2 billion in 2014 and has been growing at 20% annually, according to accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). The sector has caught the attention of entrepreneurs and investors, alike, and is evolving as an organised, technology-led industry with standards and protocols.
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