myUpchar raises $5 M Series A funding led by Nexus, Omidyar and Shunwei Capital
myUpchar, the Indian language health information platform has raised $5 million Series A funding. The round is led by Nexus Venture Partners, Omidyar Network and Shunwei Capital.
This funding will help myUpChar further develop its product and technology offering. The team intends to strengthen its video, voice, and virtual reality interface. It is also looking to develop newer interfaces, which make large-scale remote provision of health services.
Rajat Garg, Co-founder and CEO, myUpchar, believes that they have a unique opportunity to solve the acute awareness and access problem in the healthcare space. He says,
“Our focus over the next couple of years is to address this gap via technology and content. myUpchar platform will become the one-stop solution for every Indian seeking healthcare information and services in Indian languages. As our technology gets smarter, we will personalise every user’s experience to enhance our ability to have a real impact on their health outcomes.”
The platform's proprietary voice search, as well as text-to-speech technology for all health content, has enabled it to serve customers who are not yet comfortable with typing or reading this content on a phone.
Sameer Brij Verma, Managing Director, Nexus Venture Partners in a press statement said, “The team has done an exceptional job in building market leadership across the Hindi belt and now plans to scale their content and integrated consultation platform to several other regional languages.”
myUpchar, currently accessed by more than 10 million people, is on a mission to solve healthcare awareness and access across a wide socio-economic spectrum in India.
It is looking to serve the more than 500 million aspirational Indians who want quality information and services but are unable to access them either because they are not available locally or are not available in local languages.
Siddharth Nautiyal, Investment Partner, Omidyar Network, in a press statement said, “We are excited by myUpchar’s vision to become India’s largest credible and relatable health destination platform and facilitate low-cost healthcare access to cater to the needs of the new wave of first time smartphone users engaging via local language content, a population often referred to as the Next Half Billion. myUpchar has the potential to solve health information and infrastructure asymmetry for the masses, closely aligned with the government’s National Health Protection Mission.”
The platform has partnered with doctors to create credible and authoritative health content in 13 Indian languages across various disciplines such as Allopathy, Ayurveda and Homeopathy.
These consultations are conducted in a simple interface to make sure the consulting product is accessible to customers with any level of comfort with technology.
Indian language app platforms are currently gaining traction and investor attention. Last month, Aprameya Radhakrishna’s Vokal raised $5 million Series A funding led by Shunwei Capital, existing investors - Blume Ventures, Accel India and 500 startups.
Tuck Lye Foh, CEO and Founding Partner, Shunwei Capital, said in press statement, “Shunwei sees great opportunities in the local language content sector in India. We are excited to witness that myUpchar has done a great job in serving health-related content in regional languages to the mass market. We strongly believe that Rajat and Manuj will continue their success to build myUpchar into the default destination for the healthcare needs of 500 million vernacular users.”