Phaneesh Murthy eyes $12M for health-tech venture

IT industry veteran Phaneesh Murthy-led P M Health & Life Care Pvt Ltd, that is trying to create a 'health exchange' to bring clinics, hospitals, diagnostic centres and doctors together on one platform, is in talks to raise $10-12 million in Series A round of funding before December this year, Murthy told reporters in Bangalore on Monday.

In March, at the time of the launch of the company in March, Murthy had planned to raise $5 million from strategic investors. However, he has now changed those plans and brought in that money from friends and family, he said.

A former board member of Infosys who later served as CEO of IGATE, Murthy's stellar career in both these companies abruptly ended following scandalous affairs.

Early this year, Capgemini said it will acquire IGATE from its founders and PE backer Apax Partners.

After settling legal wrangling over an affair with a subordinate that cost him his job at IGATE, Murthy is now building his third innings with the Bangalore-headquartered venture.

As a first step towards his ambitious plan of a health exchange, which Murthy said would take five-eight years for completion, the company launched Zigy Health Vault, a patient-controlled electronic health record system and Zigy.com, a marketplace to connect chemists and druggists with consumers.

The chemists and druggists' online marketplace will initially serve customers in five metropolitan cities—Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Delhi. The product portfolio on the marketplace will include allopathic, homeopathic, ayurvedic and other wellness products and services. The operations will be extended to 50 cities within 18 months. Over a period of time, Zigy.com will be servicing rural India as well.

Hemant Bhardwaj, CEO, managing director and co-founder of the firm said the company targets to achieve one million transactions within the first 12 months of operations.

One venture which is in the similar space as Zigy.com is 1mg.com(formerly HealthKartPlus). Gurgaon-based Bright Lifecare Pvt Ltd, which owns and operates online drug marketplace 1mg.com, recently acquired homeopathy medicines platform homeobuy.com.

1mg raised $6 million from Sequoia Capital, Kae Capital, Intel Capital, Omidyar Network and MakeMyTrip founder Deep Kalra, early this year.