Exclusive: Child health tracking platform iCHR raises seed funding

Integrated Child Health Records (iCHR), a digital platform that integrates child health data through cloud computing and mobility technology, has raised a seed round of funding from a Delhi-based angel investor, the company's founder told VCCircle.

"The company has raised Rs 3 crore (over $450,000) from a senior partner with financial advisory firm EY (formerly Ernst & Young)," iCHR founder Harpreet Singh said.

The firm, which is run by Delhi-based Oxyent Technologies Pvt. Ltd, will use the funds for marketing campaigns for its mobile application which bridges the gap between the doctors and parents, Singh said.

UAE-based investment banking firm Veracity Leading Edge Consulting acted as the financial advisor for the firm.

"We provide a platform that integrates doctors, hospitals and parents. It provides automated vaccination records and monitors the growth schedule," Singh said, adding that the mobile interface will soon be available for both Android and iOS users.

Apart from long-term surveillance of a child's growth, the digital platform helps detect obesity and malnutrition in urban and rural populations, respectively. It also helps maintain data for research purposes.

The company, which mainly targets private hospitals and clinics in Delhi-NCR, said hospitals are providing the service to patients at a nominal charge.

"The product is sold to hospitals at a nominal cost of Rs 500 per patient per year. This covers the registration and usage of the product for the first year. We maintain the data for the patient for 12 years subsequent to which an email message with the patient's health record is sent back to the patient," he said, adding that a patients is charged Rs 100 for data retrieval.

Singh said the firm is also helping paediatricians who are practising at private clinics in terms of vaccine brand and prescription management. "We support the doctors whose patients opt for using the product for maintaining a digital record. However, for clinics, we charge patients directly via credit card at a fixed price," he said.

The firm, which claims to have over 2,500 patients on its platform, is planning to scale up by targeting big hospital chains in Delhi and across India. "We have already tied up with Apollo Hospitals. In Delhi and adjacent areas, our immediate target is over 150 private hospitals and nearly 1,000 clinics in next two years," he said.

Singh said the firm is in an advanced stage of discussions with two investors to expand its operations within India and to African countries. "We are in talks with two early-stage venture capital firms based in Singapore and the US to raise our next round of funding. We may raise as much as Rs 30 crore ($4.5 million)," Singh said.

A bunch of health-tech startups in the country provides online childcare advice. Some of them have also raised funding. Last month, AddoDoc Technologies Pvt Ltd, which runs the Babygogo mobile app that connects parents with child healthcare experts, raised $300,000 in a seed funding round led by angel investor Rajul Garg.

Lybrate, an online and mobile-based platform that connects patients to doctors, raised $10 million from Tiger Global Management, Tata Sons chairman emeritus Ratan Tata and others in July last year.

My Child App, which helps parents track learning disorders in children, raised $100,000 from Singapore Angel Network and others in January. In February, parenting app BabyBerry secured $1 million (Rs 6.8 crore) in angel funding from industrialist Nitin Bagmane and a group of undisclosed investors.