Health startup attracts international funding for building virtual hospitals
With the US$120 billion Indian health delivery market fast moving towards digitization, the country’s startup MFine has announced on 29 Sept 2021 a US$48 million Series C funding round, which is co-led by Moore Strategic Ventures and BEENEXT with participation from existing investors, Stellaris Venture Partners, SBI Group Japan, SBI Ven Capital Singapore, Heritas Capital, Prime Venture Partners, Y’S Investment Pte Ltd and Alteria Capital.
MFine aims to build one of the Largest Virtual Hospitals in the world and make high quality healthcare more accessible and effective with the use of AI and mobile technologies. Towards that vision, MFine is enabling clinical decision support for doctors using AI and bringing vitals monitoring and health management to consumers’ smartphones.
The US$120 billion Health Delivery market in India is fast moving towards digitization. It is similar to other sectors like payments, banking and education, where technology players are building digital first services and vying for a significant share of the market.
The Government initiatives such as the announcement of Telemedicine Practice Guidelines, National Digital Health Mission (NDHM) and eAccess to healthcare have further strengthened the sector’s growth trends.
The new round of funding will help MFine extend its leadership in digital health with investments into expanding its hospital, diagnostics and e-pharmacy network across the country and building tech-driven care delivery products for both acute and chronic conditions patients.
“In the healthcare sector, the world has changed to a new normal, and we are seeing a steep growth in the adoption of digital health in India too. We will continue to invest in deep tech to transform every smartphone into a health companion for consumers and a decision support assistant to all doctors,” said Prasad Kompalli, CEO & cofounder, MFine.
“We will also be looking to expand our network across India and make our services available widely. We are very excited about the future of digital health in India and we look forward to working with our partners, investors and the government to build and scale this further.”
“MFine’s model, coupling AI technology with a strong provider network, is powerful in providing healthcare services on-demand and changing the way we think about care delivery for millions across the world. We see a huge demand from consumers looking for an integrated care experience and MFine has built the right platform to deliver that experience with their state of the art technology and a fast growing provider network,” Hero Choudhary, Managing Partner, BEENEXT.
“The high uptake & engagement on MFine’s platform speaks volumes about the pressing need for such a service not only in India but also globally. We are excited to partner with MFine as they continue to change the face of healthcare in India.”
MFine is an AI-driven, on-demand healthcare platform that provides its users access to virtual consultations and connected care programmes from the country’s top hospitals. The ISO 27001 certified, m-health platform partners with leading and trusted hospitals instead of aggregating individual doctors,” Prasad Kompalli, CEO & cofounder, MFine
MFine users can consult doctors from their preferred hospitals via chat or video to get prescriptions and/or routine care. Users can also book routine lab tests, medicine delivery and access comprehensive health packages. MFine was founded in December 2017 by Ashutosh Lawania and Prasad Kompalli who were later joined by Ajit Narayanan and Arjun Choudhary.
Since its inception, over 3 million users have used MFine services with the platform clocking over 300,000 monthly transactions that include doctor consultations, diagnostic tests, e-pharmacy and in-patient procedures. In October 2018, MFine added another layer to its virtual doctor consultations by integrating with laboratory and diagnostic services and currently provides its users access to more than 700 diagnostic centres across 400 cities in India.
Over 100,000 users use MFine for booking diagnostic tests every month. More than 6000 doctors, including some of India’s top doctors from over 700 reputed hospitals practice across 35 specialties on MFine and serve millions in more than 1000 towns across India.
MFine is growing 15% month on month, amidst exponential adoption of telemedicine and digital health in India since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and increase in the adoption of digital health among Indians. MFine is investing heavily in technology to make the telemedicine experience significantly easier and effective for quality care delivery.
In early 2021, MFine launched an app-based SPO2 (blood oxygen saturation) monitoring tool which enables users to keep track of their oxygen saturation levels without needing an additional device. Since then, 250,000 users have used the tool and thousands of people continue to use it daily. In the coming months, MFine will be extending the tool to measure heart rate and blood pressure too.
The COVID-19 outbreak also pushed employers to invest into employee health benefits and many corporations are now offering various solutions that go beyond hospitalization benefits in partnership with MFine. Organizations in India are now fast turning to telemedicine as part of their employee health programs. The MFine Corporate subscription product has seen strong growth in the last year with many corporates offering multiple benefits programs as part of which employees and their families get access to online doctor consultations, preventive health checks, mental health consultations and chronic condition management.
Over 500 corporates have partnered with MFine to enable wide ranging services covering over 500,000 employees. In the coming months, the company will also bring innovative financial solutions for users together with insurance partners. #investment #funding #banking #technology #health /fiinews.com
