Accel Partners books $750K appointment with healthcare startup Sepalika
Mumbai-based health content platform Sepalika.com has raised $750,000 in its seed round led by Accel Partners. The platform, which supports those looking to reverse chronic health conditions through guidance on lifestyle, dietary supplements, and exercise aims to use the fresh capital infused to further build on its research-based content and strengthen its core proposition in the USA, a key market.
Co-founder Sharda Agarwal said, “At Sepalika, we’re committed to helping patients alleviate their suffering through simple diet and lifestyle changes, optimal use of dietary supplements, and by addressing the side effects their medicines may cause over the long term. Currently, Sepalika focuses on 11 chronic health conditions, including diseases of the heart, type 2 diabetes, acidity, hypertension, arthritis, mental health, and depression. Our mission is to transform the lives of people by covering a gamut of disorders and addressing each of them with a 360-degree approach.”
The inspiration for Sepalika came from Sharda’s personal experience of suffering from migraines for eight long years. She consulted several specialists and went through multiple drug combinations, but in vain. Apart from suffering from side effects by taking the prescribed medications, there was no improvement in her condition. This is when Sharda met Mahesh Jayaraman, a traditional acupressure therapist and health counsellor, who helped her get rid of the pulsating headaches in just four months through dietary supplements. This prompted Sharda to set up Sepalika along with Mahesh, in order to help people counter their illnesses through lifestyle changes and dietary supplements and ultimately, cut down their dependence on medicines.
Launched in March 2016, Sepalika aims to help people manage their chronic health conditions effectively thereby reducing the need for medications as their health improves. The duo believes that the incidence of chronic health conditions is rising globally, yet most people are not aware that they can be managed or reversed through diet and lifestyle changes as well as supplements.
The roadmap to recovery is charted through the use of customised tools on diet, exercise, stress management, and some traditional health hacks. The company also claims to use a functional medicine approach to understanding diseases and addressing them from a holistic, research-backed perspective.
Barath Shankar Subramanian, Principal, Accel, commented,
“Sepalika is delivering on its mission to transform lives with its unique business model. The research-backed content platform aims to bring down the dependence on drugs and partner patients, caregivers, or experts in functional medicine to reverse chronic illnesses. With people increasingly becoming health-conscious and resorting to natural methods to cure their illnesses, the resources at Sepalika such as use of research-backed dietary supplements, exercise, and stress management have a very important role to play in the effort to stay in good health.”
The founders emphasised on its primary target of tapping customers in both the US and India. Sepalika envisions covering more health conditions by bringing down the dependence on prescription drugs and addressing every illness with a 360-degree approach. The focus is on building a community of people who will look to Sepalika as their advisor, partner, and resource centre for helping them work through their chronic health conditions.
Website: Sepalika