Nexus Venture discloses $1.23M investment in online healthcare startup Lybrate

Venture capital firm Nexus Venture Partners has disclosed that it recently invested $1.23 million in India- and US-based Lybrate Inc., the company behind Lybrate.com, an online platform for patients to book appointments with doctors. Last month, Lybrate said that it closed $1.23 million in funding, but the names of the investors were not disclosed. Other investors who participated in the round are Vispi Daver, partner at Sierra Ventures, and Gokul Rajaram, head (product) at Square. As part of the deal, Sandeep Singhal, MD of Nexus, has joined the board of Lybrate.

Founded in 2013 by Saurabh Arora, Lybrate is an online and mobile-based platform that connects patients with doctors. Patients can use the service for free to find trusted doctors recommended by other patients near their locations and also book online appointments with them, while doctors use it to manage appointments, medical records, payment, billing and expenses for their clinics. Lybrate claims its platform empowers doctors with critical patient information anytime, anywhere so that they can access patient's medical history in a short time.

Lybrate's service is currently available in over 20 cities, including Bangalore, Mumbai, Chennai, Delhi and Hyderabad. The service is available online and also on iPhone & Android devices.

"In emergency situations, a delay of a few minutes to      get the right help can make a huge difference between life and death," said Arora. "With the poor infrastructure in India to take care of emergencies, we depend a lot on our social network. The Lybrate smartphone app is designed to ensure that we can both reach out for help and are also able to save the lives of our loved ones when they need us the most," he added.

"We see a huge opportunity in improving access to healthcare using technology. Lybrate's innovative platform and easy to use interface truly brings health at your fingertips," says Sandeep Singhal, co-founder & MD of Nexus.

Other similar players operating in this industry include HelpingDoc.com, Practo, HealthcareMagic, DocTree and DocSuggest.

(Edited by Joby Puthuparampil Johnson)