Mfine co-founder Prasad Kompalli on COVID-19 impact on healthcare, shift in consumer trends, and growth

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a major shift in the healthcare sector. While the segment was undergoing digital transformation, the pandemic has further accelerated the shift as people were wary of visiting doctors, clinics, or hospitals due to the fear of contracting coronavirus.

The digital shift in healthcare delivery accelerated the adoption of telemedicine services. Prasad Kompalli, CEO and Co-founder of Mfine, reveals that it is recording more than 300,000 transactions in a month.

Amid the COVID-19 situation, Mfine added 250 hospitals to its platform totaling over 550 hospitals. 

The co-founder believes there is a huge behaviour change both among consumers and healthcare providers post-COVID-19. 

“Indian consumers and providers have recognised the value of going digital in healthcare. It is similar to what happened in ecommerce, fintech, and edtech. I think COVID-19 has changed the perspective of how to think about healthcare delivery with the help of new technology…. I think there will be more unicorns sooner than later in healthcare as well as healthtech."

"Whatever fundamental changes that are required, those levels of investments, level of growth, level of reach of technology, I think those fundamentals are already in place. There is a huge behavior change and shift in the consumer and provider side in healthcare, post-COVID,” he adds.

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Mfine’s success journey

Founded in 2017 by Prasad Kompalli, Ashutosh Lawania, Ajit Narayanan, and Arjun Choudhary, Mfine provides virtual medical consultations, online prescriptions, lab tests, and medicine delivery to its users via its mobile application.

“I am a very big believer of mobile and what it can do to consumers’ life. Healthcare is a data-driven business where AI can be powerfully applied. We saw the opportunity of mobile and AI coming together...We saw an opportunity that not many companies were trying to build products around care delivery, there were products around in healthtech such as e-pharmacy, discovery applications, practice management software for doctors, etc. So those kinds of things existed but what we saw was an opportunity to find a better way to deliver care, both for the patients and for the doctors,” Prasad says.

The co-founder revealed that Mfine recorded 15 percent month-on-month growth and it is continuing.

“We reached more than three to four million customers who have very detailed use cases in terms of diagnostic tests or talking to a doctor, etc. They have their detailed medical records which are completely digitised and available for them anytime for access. So that is the kind of scale that we are,” he says.

Prasad, however, still believes that this is the “tip of the iceberg” and there is an immense potential for growth. He explains that telemedicine services not only enable access but also quality and effectiveness. He believes that every smartphone user can be a potential customer for Mfine.

In this episode of 100X Entrepreneur Podcast, Prasad talks about Mfine’s journey, the COVID-19 impact, and the future of healthtech sector in India.  

To know more, please listen to the entire podcast here

Notes – 

02:23 – Growing up in Vijayawada; Engineering background at family

10:06 – Key learnings from working at Myntra

13:59 – mfine thesis: Power of mobile & healthcare being a data-driven business

16:54 – Current Scale: Monthly transactions & Customer journey

18:36 – Early investments from Stellaris & Prime Venture Partners

29:42 – What worked: Primary care & Digitizing specialist care

32:39 – What didn’t work: You can’t inflate the demand

37:55 – Advice to first-time health care entrepreneur

46:34 – Being a Calm vs Aggressive startup CEO