Accel, Arkam Ventures back healthtech startup BestDoc

Kochi-based BestDoc Technology, which offers a patient relationship management service for healthcare providers, has raised $2.1 million (about Rs 16 crore) in a fresh funding round, dubbed a pre-Series A round.

Venture capital firms Accel and Arkam Ventures, along with returning investor SEA Fund infused capital in this round, a statement said.

The healthtech startup said it will use the fresh funds to expand its presence across India and develop products to improve in-patient admission and hospitalisation experiences.

It has raised a total of $2.5 million so far, the company said, without identifying investors in the earlier round. 

The BestDoc platform, launched in 2016 as a marketplace for doctor appointments in tier 2 and smaller towns, was in 2018 pivoted as a B2B software-as-a-service (SaaS) product.    

The company has built a slew of products, which help hospitals save staffing costs and improve operational efficiency while maintaining a patient-centric approach to care delivery, Afsal Salu, co-founder and CEO of BestDoc, said.

“In the Covid-19 scenario, BestDoc has scaled up its telemedicine and contactless solutions across several states as healthcare digitization is happening at an unprecedented pace,” he said.

Salu is also the co-founder of hyperlocal delivery startup Delyver, which was acquired by BigBasket in 2015. He set up BestDoc with Fayaz Bin Abdu, co-founder and former CTO of IT solutions company Exuberant, and Soudabi Neduvanchery, who has worked with Goldman Sachs and Ocwen Financial Solutions in the past.

BestDoc is supported by the Kerala Startup Mission (KSUM), the nodal agency of the Kerala government for entrepreneurship development and incubation activities in the state.

The startup’s product suite also includes a self-service channel for patients to book appointments, check in for consultation and make payments; an omni-channel feedback collection tool to measure patient satisfaction and a data analytics engine to take corrective actions; a schedule management system for doctors; a queue management tool; and a payments solution, which is integrated with the hospital information system (HIS).

It claims to have partnered with 120 healthcare providers in the country, including Apollo Hospitals in Bengaluru, Dr. LH Hiranandani Hospital in Mumbai, the Aster Group and KIMS Global Group.