Healthcare startup PregBuddy secures seed funding

Healthcare startup PregBuddy has secured an undisclosed amount in a seed round led by Indian Angel Network (IAN).

The Bengaluru-based venture said in a statement that other investors who participated in the round included Google India managing director and IAN member Rajan Anandan; Madhusudhan Kannan, chief business officer of Uber India & Emerging Markets; Jayant Kadambi, co-founder and chairman of data analysis platform YuMe; and Puneet Gupta, chief operating officer of the news business at Times Internet.

Pradeep K Jaisingh, IAN member and founder of healthcare incubator HealthStart, will now join the board of PregBuddy.

“We plan to utilise this investment to expand our team and scale up the platform,” said SL Sivareena, co-founder and chief operating officer at PregBuddy.

She added that the startup was also looking to hire technology, marketing and business development professionals.
Sivareena and Subhadeep Mondal, both Indian Institute of Technology graduates, had founded PregBuddy in October 2016.

Run by PregBuddy Technologies Pvt. Ltd, the firm focuses on providing medical care to expecting mothers by connecting them with doctors through its mobile app.

It also provides personalised healthcare through peer support and access to nutrition, fitness and emotional advice.
PregBuddy claims to have 60,000 users, with 20% organic growth every month. It says most of its customers are first-time mothers living in nuclear families.

Co-founder Sivareena, a former executive at rental startup Furlenco, was among the 15 women entrepreneurs selected by Zone Startups India last October for the second cohort of its accelerator programme.

The startup was also selected by Google for their first cohort of Solve for India programme. 

Indian Angel Network

IAN is the country’s most prolific angel network. The sector-agnostic gorup has funded startups across 17 sectors in India and six other countries. IAN's portfolio includes startups such as WebEngage, Druva, Box8, Sapience Analytics, WOW Momos, and Consure.

Its recent investments include tech-enabled fashion startup 6Degree and cold-chain-monitoring startup TagBox Solutions Pvt. Ltd. 

In February, Indian Angel Network (IAN) led by Sandeep Soni invested an undisclosed amount in Los Angeles-based startup Vyng Inc., which allows smartphone users to play videos as ringtones. 

IAN made 40 bets in the financial year 2017-18. Its single-largest investment was $3.5 million (Rs 23 crore) in a firm currently in stealth mode. 

Deals in the healthcare space

There have been a host of deals in the healthcare space in the recent past.

Earlier on Monday, Affordplan, a Delhi-based fintech startup that makes healthcare services accessible through planned savings for non-emergency treatments, raised fresh capital in its Series B round from a clutch of investors. 

In addition, CureFit Healthcare Pvt. Ltd, which operates health and fitness platform CureFit, raised Rs 4.18 crore (about $611,121) in a fresh funding round. 

Last week, LetsMD, a fintech startup in the healthcare space, raised $1 million (Rs 6.5 crore) in a pre-Series A round of funding led by SRI Capital. 

A month ago, Rajasthan-based Karma Primary Healthcare Services Pvt. Ltd, which provides technology-based healthcare solutions in rural areas, raised Rs 3 crore ($500,000) in a fresh round of funding from equity crowdfunding platform 1Crowd.