EyeNetra’s Plan To Revolutionize Eye Care in India
Disruptive innovations in healthcare are breaking down the barriers of use by creating new and exciting opportunities for entrepreneurs to find their niche and implement a solution. There is a lot of room for value addition and improvements in the Indian healthcare segment. Opportunities in this space include product or service modification to serve a developing nation, finding a way to provide increased access to healthcare, making healthcare access more convenient, inventing a new product affordable for the masses and so on.
David Schafran, Co-founder and CEO of EyeNetra has chosen the eye care industry to focus on and make a difference for millions around the globe. EyeNetra has developed an easy to use low-cost eye care diagnostic device that measures for nearsightedness, farsightedness and astigmatism on a mobile phone, and this is just the beginning for them. SocialStory spoke to David about their recent funding, position in the market, and plan for future growth. Excerpts.
Social Story: Tell us a little more about yourself, your interest in eye care, and EyeNetra.
David Schafran: I’m a startup guy. I’ve worked with technology companies in India and US, who are introducing new ways of using mobile and cloud technology to empower the masses. Some of my work includes a 2009 Rockefeller Foundation fellowship through Villgro Innovations where I worked with DesiCrew Solutions, the first rural BPO in India, as well as having worked with Intuit in 2010 on their SMS based web browser, txtweb, when it was in its infancy.
NETRA was originally a project from MIT Media Lab invented by my cofounders at EyeNetra. The device represented a convergence of all of my interests: breakthrough science, mobile tech, low cost point of care diagnostics, and simplified design. I instantly saw the potential to empower millions, maybe billions with an accessible diagnostic that could connect people to eyeglasses in a way that made much more sense then what we are used. It didn’t hurt that I come from a family of optometrists, so I’ve always been an eye guy. I joined the Media Lab in 2010, we started the company in 2011 and the rest is history.
I feel like we’re setting a new standard for eye testing that will transform how eye testing is done and how eyeglasses are delivered in this world. Its quite exciting.
SS: How are you going to price this product so it is available to the masses?
Schafran: The device is more accurate than many $10,000 devices in the market at a fraction of the cost – we’re determining pricing as we do more pilots.
SS: 2.4 billion people worldwide don’t have glasses that need them. From an Indian perspective, what is the size of the market you are addressing and how are you addressing it?
Schafran: Numbers vary, but there are at least 300 million people in India who need glasses, and large majorities of the population don’t have them. The reason for this is lack of access to eye testing, both because there are not enough trained professionals and equipment like autorefractors are too expensive.
We want to go global, and India is our first market. There is a change coming in the world in terms of consumer health. People are accessing their health via apps on their phone, pharmacies like Walgreens, and retailers like Walmart and Sears. Same goes for eyecare – particularly in online retail, they can simplify the supply chain and provide eyeglasses at a lower cost directly to the consumers through the Internet. The next step in disruption is diagnostic itself; how do we get millions of people tested and connected to eyeglasses in an accurate, fast, and easy way that doesn’t require significant training and expensive equipment?…that’s where we fit in.
SS: What kind of people are you looking to hire in the EyeNetra team?
Schafran: We are looking for people who are absolutely passionate about changing the world for the betterment of humanity. We want people who really care about making a difference and who are excited about working on something that can be quite disruptive for an industry and helpful for real people – we’re talking about eyesight here.
Second, we are looking for an Android developer, and not just any Android developer, but a real star. Somebody who loves challenges that can make magic happen with their code. They are going to play a significant role in the company — we are a small, early stage team.
SS: How will you break into the market? Any key partnerships?
Schafran: This is twofold. On one level we are doing it by ourselves because we know our device better than anybody. But realistically to penetrate India you need partners, it’s too big to do yourself. We are speaking to everyone in the space, and have already partnered with the LV Prasad Eye Institute. We are looking at everybody from eye hospitals, lens suppliers, frame suppliers, and retailers on the ground to help us reach consumers.
SS: Can you tell us about your recent funding, the investors, amount of funding, and what you going to use the funding for?
Schafran: Khosla Impact and Khosla Ventures recently funded us with 1 million dollars of seed funding. We are using the money to prove that this device can be as accurate as the top line devices in the field at a fraction of the cost, and prove its applicability in the real world.
SS: How are your investors they supporting you beyond the money?
Schafran: They’ve been great in thinking about the go-to-market, introductions, and hiring. Our investors have funded some really successful companies, and it’s exciting for us to be involved with people like them given we are at an early stage.
More information on EyeNetra and their revolutionary eye care platform!
