SINGAPORE – OurHealthMate, an online platform that allows non-resident Indians to manage and monitor their family’s healthcare from a distance, today announced it had closed a SGD560K (USD440K) seed funding round led by Bimal Shah, heading an international syndicate of business angels. The round is supported by Singapore-based Benjamin Tsai and a second international angel syndicate led by high frequency trader Ben Ball.
Akash Kumar and Abhinav Krishna developed their business through the JFDI.Asia accelerator program in 2013, culminating in a demo day in June where the syndicates now funding OurHealthMate came together. The money raised will be used to expand the team from 6 to 16 staff across offices in India and Singapore and to introduce the platform to more cities across Asia.
Abhinav Krishna, OurHealthMate’s CEO, said : “We’ve been incredibly lucky with this business – people seem to understand it and its potential. It was humbling to receive several firm offers from both funds and high net worth individuals. Several of them would have given us more cash than we have closed today. But in the end the hands-on engagement and strategic connections that our new shareholders bring, particularly to enterprise partners, made those factors even more valuable as we scale up rapidly.”
OurHealthMate’s platform makes it easy for people to book and pay for health checkups on behalf of their families, and receive feedback directly from the doctor. At end December 2013, six months after completing the JFDI program, OurHealthMate was being used by 2,000+ doctors in 700+ medical centres located in 50+ cities spread across India. An additional 30 hospitals are joining each week.
Bimal Shah, lead investor, said: “We first met Abhinav at the start of the JFDI.Asia program and it was immediately clear that he and his business were very strong. I brought LEO TECH, a software development house, in as a partner early on and we built a close working relationship. Abhinav and his team delivered on every single promise they made to us, creating the confidence for both LEO TECH and me personally to increase our commitment to the company’s future.”
Every year, 22 million Non Resident Indians (NRIs) remit USD10bn back home to India to pay for the healthcare of their loved ones. Unfortunately the recipients, typically ageing parents, frequently fail to make and keep medical appointments for themselves. This leaves the NRI family member anxious that their loved ones are not getting the same standard of care that they would ensure if they were able to provide it personally.
OurHealthMate’s web platform brings peace of mind to NRIs because it creates a direct link to healthcare professionals providing services from small clinics to multi-speciality hospitals. Not only do they gain more choice and control but they also benefit from feedback on the care provided. OurHealthMate anticipates releasing upgrades to its service through Q2 2014 that will give users more visibility of the many healthcare options that its expanding network of hospitals can offer.
OurHealthMate’s core team is made up of NRI expats who directly experience the problem they are solving. Co-founder and CEO Abhinav Krishna worked with several start-ups in Singapore and California before tackling online transactions and data security at CitiBank and Merill Lynch. Cofounder and CTO Akash Kumar holds a PhD from Technical University of Eindhoven. The two met at Raffles Junior College over a decade ago.
Bimal Shah qualified as an Accountant before joining KPMG. As Investment Director at UK defence technology and security company QinetiQ he was involved in a number of major M&A transactions as well as setting up and consolidating start-ups that used the company’s groundbreaking Intellectual Property. Subsequently joining Nomad Digital as CFO, he helped the company become the largest provider of Wifi communications to trains in the world, along the way raising over USD40m in debt and equity and closing rollout contracts across Europe and North America. Since 2012 he has led the development of LEO TECH, which offers a one-stop shop for Financial, Ecommerce, Mobile covering both Software and Infrastructure services, all under one roof in Singapore.
Benjamin Tsai has invested in both early stage startups and funds supporting their growth.
Ben Ball is a high frequency trader and angel investor. As one of the first investors to back JFDI.Asia, he has taken an active role in supporting the growth of early stage businesses in Singapore.
JFDI.Asia is now accepting applications for its next accelerator program