Healthtech startup eKincare secures Series-A funding from Ventureast, Endiya Partners, Eight Roads,Touchstone equities, BVR Mohan Reddy
The current round of funding will be used to grow and expand the technology platform, sales team and also get more doctors on board.
Hyderabad-based healthtech startup eKincare driven by artificial intelligence (AI), has today announced that it has secured $1.5 million in Series A funding. The investors involved in the round include Ventureast, Endiya Partners, Eight Roads, Touchstone equities, and BVR Mohan Reddy.
The startup's AI-powered personal health assistant reads medical data from health records and various healthcare interventions, predicts health risks and provides timely personalised recommendations to beat those risks. All one has to do is take pictures of the physical medical records and eKincare will do the rest.
It was launched in October 2014 by Kiran Kalakuntla (Founder and CEO), an engineering and management graduate from Duke University, and AT&T alumni, with over a decade’s experience in building and marketing technology products, and Srikanth Samudrala (Co-founder and CTO), an engineering graduate from IIT Madras with more than 10 years’ experience in developing scalable enterprise applications for Barclays, HSBC and his own startup before joining eKincare.
Kiran said, “We have seen a lot of interest from corporates to leverage our platform for their employees, keep track of the overall organisation's wellness metrics and maximise the RoI out of their wellness budgets. We have defined and established the need for an enterprise-level platform that delivers an unparalleled personalised experience for corporates, employees and consumers at large and help them achieve and sustain their optimal health.”
“The current round of funding will be used to grow and expand our technology platform and sales team and also get more doctors on board. We are committed to providing effective and intelligent solutions to healthcare system in India and contribute in developing a healthy ecosystem overall,” added Kiran.
Through its deep understanding and usage of technology, data science and curated services, the startup has successfully assisted organisations to reach their optimal health and save on healthcare costs; thereby helping them become more strategic and efficient in their employee benefits spend.
Fortune 500 companies like Optum, Unilever, Barclays and Disney, among others, are eKincare’s strategic partners in over 2,000 locations across India.
As an end-to-end integrated healthcare solution with the ability to collect, structure and provide meaningful insights, eKincare is also adding value to insurance through quicker and efficient decision making, data-driven underwriting of risk, reduced costs, minimised fraud and errors through automation.
Commenting on the announcement, Srikanth Sundararajan, General Partner, Ventureast said, “We constantly invest in disruptive start-ups that aim at addressing a larger market or consumer related challenges. eKincare is leading the predictive digitisation of health-care that can help us take control of health outcomes while minimising recurring costs. We are confident that the team will cement strategic partnerships, and continue to lead the ‘predictive diagnosis’ space through technology innovations.”
Amongst the top Indian startups selected by Swiss Re for its first-ever global accelerator programme, eKincare received a no-obligation grant of $15,000 to further develop its product. Winner of the Uberexchange programme, the company was also featured in the Global Digital Health 100 Award List by The Journal of mHealth.
“We have always been a strong advocate for technologies that will help build a better tomorrow. As the healthcare sector continues to evolve, we believe eKincare is on the right path to addressing the current challenges in the sector through technology and innovations,” said Ramesh Byrapaneni, Managing Director, Endiya Partners.
The entire healthcare market in India is estimated to be worth around $80 billion, and the online market is estimated to grow to over $42 billion in the coming years. But not many core healthcare players are entering the analytics part solely; they usually provide overall healthcare services like booking appointments and facilitating video chats.