How Portea Medical found its sweet spot in the healthcare segment

In a field where emphasis has always been laid on experts, Portea Medical decided to play by its own rules. The healthcare ecosystem, for years, has held professionals like doctors, nurses, technicians, as its focus. But when Portea launched in 2013, it came with the belief that the patient or customer is at the centre. This unique vision, along with courage and timely support, helped them become pioneers in the field. Today, Portea Medical is India’s largest consumer home healthcare provider.

Speaking at The Success Edition, an initiative by Kotak Mahindra Bank and YourStory, Meena Ganesh, Co-founder, MD & CEO, Portea Medical, says, “This whole concept of keeping the patient at the centre is what has led us to create a comprehensive set of solutions, ranging from primary healthcare, chronic disease management, post operative care and caring for the elderly. It’s a very solution-driven approach." This approach also lets the patient have a lot more control in their treatment. In the past eight years, demand has steadily increased, and as of 2021, Portea Medical has 4,000 employees and they conduct 1,50,000 home visits every month.

But the Portea story came with its own set of challenges. For one, they had to build comfort and credibility for this kind of offering in the healthcare sector as new entrants. The second challenge was to make this a career option for medical experts, to prove to them that this exciting new platform can help them grow as professionals too. Meena credits their success to a fearless team and supportive partners. Tiding over the challenges together, the team found a steady backing in Kotak Mahindra Bank. Calling Kotak Mahindra a strong partner in their journey, she says, "In the case of Portea, apart from regular banking work, they provided us with a term loan, debt against a lot of medical equipment we buy as well as a cash credit line."

The past year made Portea include COVID-19 care among its services. As India edged towards the lockdown, the company realised that keeping all patients in a COVID-19 care facility may not be possible. So the team went ahead to work with six state governments, and monitored nearly 4,00,000 COVID-19 patients at their homes. Currently, Portea is focusing on accelerating vaccinations across the country. But this journey boils down to the right financial assistance at the right time with Kotak Mahindra as a key partner right from the start. Meena feels that today investors look at businesses that have a very clear bottomline, and can sense if they are able to reach profitability; so keeping all of this in mind while building financial strategy becomes super important.

Coming back to the Portea journey, Meena says, "I’m very confident the next few years will see significant change in how the industry is growing and as a result of that, Portea is growing".

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The views expressed by the speaker in this video are personal. This video is for information purposes only.