How this bootstrapped startup clocked $2 mn revenue in three years

Serial entrepreneur Sridharan Sivan had set up five successful businesses in the past and is all set to scale up his sixth venture.

The idea was derived from his fifth venture, Take Solutions, which was in the domain of technology for life science and supply chain management. What grabbed his attention was the underserved doctor-patient interaction (the last-mile healthcare delivery). In order to serve this requirement, he set up S10Health in 2013 and it shifted its base in India market in February 2015.

Using latest trends in data management, technology, medical services and demand-supply synchronisation, S10Health intends to add value across the healthcare chain- doctors, hospitals, clinics, laboratories, pharmacies and patients.

Globally, the healthcare market is fragmented and highly regulated. Lack of scale and frequent regulatory changes is limiting the ability of specialty clinics to provide high quality, convenient and personalised care. Customer needs have outpaced the physician-driven model of healthcare,” said Sridharan.

Creating a win-win model

S10Health has been bootstrapped with a seed fund of $2 million and is claimed to be growing by 100 percent year on year. The startup has partnered with physicians in US and India to provide health seekers easy access to quality medical care.

The idea of creating a win-win model for both doctors and health seekers resulted in Sridharan introducing S10 SafeCare standardisation. It verifies doctors and treatments against Medical Council of India (MCI) guidelines, and evaluates the structures and processes that guide the delivery of healthcare services. The standards are tailored to take healthcare quality and patient safety to new levels by empowering healthcare providers to deliver quality services.

Sridharan says that doctors are now able to see 40 percent more patients using data management through virtual scribing and improve customer satisfaction level upto 93 percent.

Started in US

Since the founding team had experience in supporting the healthcare and life sciences space in US, S10 Health started operations initially in US in 2012-13. The startup claimed that its US market operations has been very successful and managed to enroll over 210 clinics as of today.

According to Sridharan, the overall US healthcare expenditure was estimated to be $3.24 trillion in 2015, and is projected to soar to $3.78 trillion in 2018. The Indian healthcare market is around $100 billion and the physician and clinical services market was about $30 billion. In India, specialty care market is expected to grow at about 18 percent year-on-year.

Population growth, ageing population, increased need for chronic and communicable disease management, rising wealth and income are some factors that are driving the demand of this segment.

 Bridging the demand-supply gap

 S10 Health synchronises demand and supply of healthcare services. S10 Health Angels helps doctors turn their patient interactions into computerised data and transforming this information into meaningful data for medical services, medical science protocol and healthcare norm.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       S10 Health helps health seekers find the right treatment with online information regarding risks, benefits and cost of treatments. Health seekers can then fix appointments online with SafeCare-verified doctors. The startup claims the clinics are monitored to be safe, infection-controlled and well-maintained to deliver effective medical care.

At the clinic the startup helps doctors turn their patient interactions into computerised data, and transforms this information into electronic health records and personal health records. Additionally, S10 Health provides notice of expected events, and screening and monitoring through e-reminders to the users. Its care co-coordinators monitor customer feedback to improve and understand health seeker needs.

Growth metrics

S10 Health has about 250 clients (clinics) and six lakh health seekers (patients) on board from in and around country. It handles close to 34,000 patients every month. Since its inception, S10 Health is present in 21 States in the US and two States in India. With a team of 300 people, S10 Health will be adding 200 more people this year.

The startup generates revenue of $100o-2500 in US per clinic, while in India the range is from $50 to 1000 depending on the number and value of transaction. Setting India operations initially in Chennai, the startup has now branched to Delhi and will be expanding to 12 hubs across India in the next two years. Currently, the monthly run rate of annualised transaction is about $1 million. Growing at about 100 percent year-on-year, S10 Health clocked a revenue of $2 million last FY year.

Market overview

According to IBEF, the healthcare market in India was worth close to $100 billion as of 2015 and is expected to touch $280 billion by 2020, clocking a CAGR of 22.9 percent. Of the overall market, the healthcare delivery sub-segment accounts for 65 percent.

Tencent-backed Practo, Accel Partners-backed Portea Medical, Ratan Tata-backed Lybrate, Medwell Ventures and MedGenome are some of the bigger names in the digital healthcare space. Medwell raised $10 million from Fidelity Growth Partners India (FGPI) and Fidelity Biosciences, while MedGenome raised $20 million from Sequoia Capital.

Website: S10 Health