Home healthcare startup Portea raises Series C funding of $26 M

Portea, the Bengaluru-based home healthcare startup, has raised Series C funding of $26 million led by Sabre Partners and MEMG CDC Ventures. Existing investors Qualcomm Ventures and International Finance Corporation also participated in this round. The funds will be used to add more depth to Portea’s existing services.

Previously, Portea had raised Series A funding in December 2013 and $37.5 million in Series B in 2015. The healthcare startup operates across chronic disease management, post-operative care, elder care, and primary care. Avendus Capital provided financial advisory services for the latest round.

Portea's services include physiotherapy, doctor consultations, new-mother-and-baby care, specialty pharmacy, nutritional wellness, diabetic care, surgery discovery, and teleconsultation. It claims to be working with more than 50 leading hospital partners, 15 pharma majors, and leading insurance companies in India.

In Bengaluru, its largest market, the company conducts over 50,000 monthly visits, including elder care, and has registered a month-on-month growth of 15 percent in the number of home visits since 2013. Meena Ganesh, MD and CEO, Portea, said they have built a tightly integrated platform for a wide range of tech-led healthcare services. She added that they have served more than 2.5 lakh customers in 16 cities in the country.

Speaking of why they chose to invest in Portea, Rajiv Maliwal, Founder and Managing Partner, Sabre Partners, said that by using innovative approaches, Portea continues to make an important contribution to improving access and bringing higher quality care for all patients.

Portea has its sights set on becoming a comprehensive solution for all of a senior’s healthcare needs with its 4,000-member strong workforce of doctors, nurses, nursing attendants, and physiotherapists. Harinarayan Sharma, Managing Director, MEMG CDC Ventures, added in a press statement:

“Organised homecare is an integral component in ensuring 'continuum of care'. Our investment in Portea will help the company scale and embed technology to improve efficiency and effectiveness in its delivery. We’re providing patient, long-term capital to Portea for it to develop capabilities to reach out to many more customers and offer a comprehensive range of 'out of hospital care' services.”

A number of healthcare providers and hospitals across the country such as India Home Healthcare, Health Care at Home, Nightingales, Apollo, and Max are entering the home healthcare sector. Portea claims to have clocked two million patient visits across the country since its inception and served over 1,20,000 patient visits (an increase of 133 percent from 46,330 total patients over the last 12 months). An increase in the number of visits per month from 60,000 in July 2015 to over 1,00,000 in June 2016 indicates a rising demand for quality home healthcare.