Online healthcare platform PurpleHealth raises $100K

Online health-on-demand platform PurpleHealth.com (previously known as DoctorsCabin.com), which is operated by Kerala-based DoctorsCabin Health Technologies Pvt. Ltd, has raised $100,000 (around Rs 67 lakh) from Mumbai-based Katabole Technology Venture, as it aims to enhance its product offerings, it said in a statement.

The funding will be used for strengthening PurpleHealth's team and enhancing its products, the firm said.

Katabole is an early stage investor focused on segments such as education, healthcare, fin-tech, Internet of Things (IoT), mobile, social networks, security, storage and data analytics.

PurpleHealth.com was founded in 2014 by Vikram Nair, Mini Balaraman and Prakash Sathyapalan. Previously, Nair was CEO of Toronto-based marketing and e-commerce platform

Showbizzee. While Balaraman earlier worked with Sun Microsystems (now Oracle), Sathyapalan previously worked with auditing firm EY (formerly Ernst & Young).

The platform provides users access to doctors, hospitals and health-related products and services. It allows users to choose doctors, schedule appointments and set up video and voice chat with doctors. PurpleHealth also provides technological support to help healthcare providers engage with their customers. The platform currently has over 38,000 doctors and 4,000 hospitals in its network.

"The Indian healthcare sector is expected to post a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 22.9% during the five-year period between 2015 and 2020 and touch $280 billion. We intend to play a substantial part in that growth by creating a positive impact on how health and wellness products and services are accessed by and delivered to every individuals, corporates and institutions," Nair said.

Balaji Jagannathan, founder and CEO, Katabole Technology Venture, said, "What excited us about PurpleHealth was its approach that recognises the scale of the problems the health space presents. Its product roadmap is exciting and we are looking forward to the innovations that PurpleHealth will bring to the market."

Over the last couple of years, a bunch of healthcare technology companies, including Practo, Lybrate, HelpingDoc, Praxify, AllizHealth and HealthEnablr, started offering platforms to help customers find doctors, labs and pharmacies through apps and web. Some of these players also attracted significant investor interest. Practo, a web-based clinic management software developer, has raised over $120 million far, and has also been on an aggressive expansion mode.

Online doctor appointment platform Lybrate had raised $1.23 million in funding in August 2014, followed by another $10 million in July 2015, and counts Tiger Global Management, Ratan Tata and Nexus Venture Partners as its investors.

In March this year, HealthEnablr had raised $800,000 (around Rs 5.4 crore) in seed funding from a group of unnamed professionals, including some prominent investors from Silicon Valley and Hong Kong.

In November last year, Bangalore-based Medinfi Healthcare Pvt. Ltd—which operates an online platform for searching doctors and hospitals—had raised Rs 1 crore ($150,000) in angel funding from four investors, including Gurmeet Chahal, senior vice president and head - healthcare of HCL Technologies.

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