Singaporean Startup addressing a concern about healthcare of family members of the NRI Community

Abhinav Krishna moved to Singapore in 2001 from Lucknow, on a Singapore Airline Scholarship available to students after class 10. He graduated from NUS with a computer science degree and joined the corporate bandwagon at Citibank, gearing up for 'that perfect life'. Couple of years later, when the entrepreneurial urge became too hard to resist, he embarked on his new journey with Akash Kumar who had walked down the same path to Singapore, few years before him.

If you are familiar with Singapore, you know people take fitness really seriously. Make your way to the Singapore river any time of the day and you'll see enthusiastic runners, even in the scorching heat! My own yoga class in fact also has a 'lunch hour' class, where people step out for practise middle of the day, never mind that it eats up into their precious lunch hour.

The two factors above set the perfect tone to introduce 'My Fitness Wallet' - Abhinav and Akash's maiden venture. My Fitness Wallet is a platform integrated to an individual's social media presence which determines the lifestyle, demography, age and other factors and recommends the perfect exercise routine, which, when synced with the personal calendar suggests the most suitable and convenient time to exercise, bearing prescheduled commitments in mind.

With My Fitness Wallet, co-founders Abhinav and Akash traveled all the way to Chile, when they got funded by Startup Chile. In the long road to Chile and back, they realised two things- there was a missing link in the business plan of My Fitness Wallet (since the business wasn't generating enough money) and the missing link itself - lack of a pain point.

"We realized that notification or being answerable to someone is a very important aspect of healthcare", says Abhinav, of their eureka moment. Around the time, Abhinav's dad had to undergo a major surgery and he realised there was no way to monitor doctor appointments and keep tab of follow up checkups etc.

Our Health Mate was thus born, out of their personal and professional quest and experiences.

"It was during My Fitness Wallet, that we first noticed that while the product was being used in India, the records were being accessed from all over the world. NRIs are always worried about their family's health back in India. Every year, 22 million NRIs send $65B back home to India and $10B of it is intended for healthcare expenses. So far, they have had no way to follow up on the health issues, connect with doctors and access medical records. With Our Health Mate, we are making this happen", says Abhinav, explaining the business.

The duo started with conducting several surveys among the NRI community in Singapore. They narrowed down three things that NRIs wanted:

• feedback on doctor appointment
• option of direct payment to the doctor/hospital
• ability to identify the doctors themselves.

With all three taken care of, Our Health Mate was launched in January 2013 with 6 clinics to begin with. In the short span of 6 months, the company has tied up with over 50 clinics and over 70 doctors in India, and have sold 19 subscriptions, all within their community in Singapore.

Our Health Mate was one of the graduating teams from the last batch of startups mentored by Singapore's leading accelerator, JFDI. Speaking of their experience with JFDI, Abhinav says, "there is excellent mentorship and no help you need is off limits for Meng and Hugh. From helping you find the right brand name to buying domain names, they are there with you at every step. Another big thing is that they trust you with money from day one". Speaking of the teams and general working environment, he elaborates, "you are not competing with anyone, JFDI encourages you to work as a team with all participants. So everyone is on your side and interacting with other teams, from different backgrounds on varied products is a huge learning by itself".

OurHealthMate is supported in its endeavour by LeoTech, who are their technology partner and investors.

I first met Abhinav at the JFDI demo day. He made the first pitch that night, a rather impressive and dramatic entry, I thought. He spoke about his father’s sudden surgery and how helpless he felt. Then, he introduced his product. That perception was until I met him for this interview, when I realised his emotional connect with his company and the product.

The demo day has lead to several investor interest in their product and the company is currently in discussion with a few of them. "We are looking for investment to the tune of $600k to 1M for expansion and are targeting to establish our presence in around 40 cities and 1000 clinics in India. We are also looking expanding the business in Philippines", concludes Abhinav.

Website: OurHealthMate