With $37.5 M Series B funding, healthcare startup Portea plans massive hiring and acquisitions

Entrepreneurs rarely announce funding on a Sunday. But today is an exception. Home focused healthcare platform Portea announced that it has raised $37.5 million Series B round led by existing investor - Accel and International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group; Qualcomm Ventures, and Ventureast.

Following the round, Arun Mathew of Accel Partners will join the company’s board.

Portea will use the capital towards expansion in India, massive hiring, sprucing up technology, and expand in Malaysia where it already provides services in four cities. Portea claims to process 600K consumer request since its Series A in December 2013.

Currently, Portea operates across 24 cities and handles 60,000 visits in a month to patients’ homes. Portea had previously received $8 million Series A funding from Accel and Ventureast in the last leg of 2013. Qualcomm Ventures made strategic investment in the company in July 2014.

Expressing her view on the Series B funding, Meena Ganesh, MD & CEO of Portea, said, “This investment from marquee investors recognizes the rapid strides Portea has made in the last 18 months.”

Meena and Ganesh Krishnan bought Portea Medical in July 2013 from Zachary Jones and Karan Aneja, who founded the company in the middle of 2012. The company has more than 3,000 staff and plans to recruit an additional 5,000 employees over the next 18 months in line with the company’s growth plans across the region.

“There is a tremendous need to offer an in-home healthcare option for millions of people in India and other emerging markets,” said Arun.

Portea used to do 20-30 transactions on a daily basis during the second half of 2013, however, the company now claims to process 2,000 requests everyday. For accelerating growth, the company is in advance talks with couple of startups for acquisition. “We are talking to three-four startups and will announce if we get through,” added Meena.

YourStory’s take

The Series B round will help Portea to fortify its presence in tier II and III cities and tackle competition. The primary healthcare segment is highly unorganized in India. Portea solves major painpoint of accessing primary healthcare services conveniently at home. The company competes with Healthcare at Home and India Home Healthcare.

According to the report released by India Brand Equity, the per capita expenditure on healthcare is estimated to increase to $89 in 2015 from $61 in 2012. The market size of the sector in India was estimated to be $75 billion during 2012-13 and is projected to reach $160 billion by 2017.

Healthcare is one of the last sectors to be disrupted by technology in India. Almost nothing had changed when you compared two decades ago with three years ago. However, over the last two years things have changed and it looks like digital healthcare segment has hit the inflection point. Going forward, it would be interesting to watch how this sector shapes over the next couple of years.

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