Need doorstep pathology service from trusted paramedics? This Gurugram startup can help you

As per Startup India’s estimates, the healthcare sector is one of the sunrise sectors in India, expected to reach $372 billion by 2022 from an estimated $160 billion in 2017. 

The sector's growth can be attributed to factors, including improved services, increased coverage, private investments, and FDI, and has allowed more startups to provide healthcare services across India. 

With over five years of experience in the healthcare industry, entrepreneurs J. Asitranjan Biswabhusan and Puneet Sharma founded Gurugram-based DiagRight in 2020.

“When we entered the sector, digital healthcare was the only way to solve the problem of reaching out to many people as physical healthcare infrastructure could not reach those places,” Asitranjan tells YourStory. 

DiagRight aims to standardise the last-mile delivery of physical healthcare infrastructure, reducing the scope of pre-analytical errors. The startup provides pathology services by building an ecosystem of standardisation and convenience.

The startup’s app offers diagnostic services — serving phlebotomists now who collect blood samples for various medical tests — where it provides a user-friendly interface for consumers to book tests online across India with just a click. 

Moreover, its TrackRight technology enables customers to track the temperature of their sample till it gets deposited in the testing lab as per the customer’s preference. 

The platform’s evolution 

DiagRight — an on-demand and hyperlocal diagnostic ecosystem — is focused on channelising and standardising the last-mile delivery of collecting samples from home across India to minimise the pre-analytical error, which occurs about 70 percent of the time. 

To deliver diagnostics at the doorstep, the company launched a pilot healthcare service in Lucknow. As for its diagnostic services, the company claims it is available in all cities in India, as long as the phlebotomists have registered themselves from the city or town.

“When we started, we thought it will be one of the diagnostic companies, where we offer different services to the customer. However, while evolving and looking closely at the market and identifying its requirements, we went from a service-based to a product-based company,” explains Asit.

From addressing the gap in the number of people who require diagnostic services to the number of players who offer these services, the startup evolved its platform to address a global problem.  

At present, DiagRight plans to enter the paramedic sector. The founders call it creating an ecosystem for the paramedics to ensure they are employable. 

The Gurugram startup not only provides accurate diagnoses for the customers but also makes phlebotomists more independent by providing them with financial support and training them to achieve greater proficiency in their respective fields. 

“We are trying to address a problem of standardising the home healthcare service by creating an incubation platform for all paramedics, where the paramedic community will be employable, giving them a path to go to a different horizon, which they never thought of,” explains Asit.

Using its hyperlocal model, DiagRight offers three service pillars — namely PAAS (Paramedics-as-a-Service), TAAS (Test-as-a-Service), and EAAS (Enterprise-as-a-Service).

Under the PAAS service, the startup enables phlebotomists to register themselves on the platform and use it to earn. Additionally, it has built a robust training and incubation centre for all the paramedical workers, initially for phlebotomists, but with a perspective to build a complete ecosystem. 

“We are focusing on building a huge fleet of paramedical workers. We are currently working towards creating a first of its kind incubation and training centre for all paramedical workers, which will be dedicated towards the upliftment and upscaling of the paramedical workers,” says Asit.

Under TAAS, the company building a network of diagnostic labs pan India, which will enable a hyperlocal model so that the consumer can take a test anytime and anywhere from the lab of their choice.

On the customer side, the startup allows them to book their tests at the lab and phlebotomists of their choice. The company, on the other hand, takes accountability from the minute the tests are conducted to when the customer gets their results. 

Under EAAS, the company would provide a complete enterprise end-to-end customer life-cycle solutions by channelization and standardization the last mile delivery (home sample collection) across the country. It aims to minimizes the pre-analytical error which constitutes to 70% of the errors in a diagnostic test.

He adds, “We are soon launching a 24x7 diagnostics under DST (Diagnostic Standard Time), where a phlebotomist will reach the customers’ doorsteps in 45 mins.”

DiagRight has close to 32,000 phlebotomists and 2,000 labs registered on its platform. So far, it has served more than one lakh customers and has conducted over 50 lakh tests, witnessing a high repeat rate of consumers returning to the platform.

The team and market

DiagRight has a 140-member team, with close to 27 directly employed and six consultants on the technical side. 

Asit, CEO of DiagRight, has worked at senior levels in companies, including ICICI Bank, Macquarie, Healthians, Zoylo, and Call Health, among others, while COO Puneet has worked with Vodafone, Sify, Seventymm.com, Tata Docomo, Healthians, and OYO in leadership roles. 

The startup competes with Qure.ai and SigTuple Technologies, to name a few. 

“So far, we do not have a peer-to-peer competition as far as our business model is concerned, because here we are creating an incubation platform for all the paramedics. So, whatever we do, we do a lab tie-up or registration of paramedics, which happens with technologies. We are a technology platform, which allows all the paramedics, hospitals, and labs to get to aggregate with us.”

In August 2021, DiagRight raised pre-seed funding of Rs 2 crore from angel investors, including Amit Dhanuka, Executive Vice President, Lionsgate Play; Yogesh Goel, Joint Managing Director, Goel Group, and a few others. 

It utilised the fund to strengthen its technology, operational framework, phlebotomist application, and DiagRight consumer application. 

Post the funding, DiagRight extended its lab network from 20 labs to more than 1,500 labs, while phlebotomists registrations grew from 400 to over 32,000. It claims to have an annual recurring revenue (ARR) of $3.6 million — 3X more than its pre-seed funding returns.

The startup also plans to raise $20 million in another three months. It also claims it has an aim to capture a total addressable market (TAM) of Rs 90,000 crore in the future.