Care24 claims to handle 350-400 daily visits to patients’ homes with almost 500 care-givers on board.
New Delhi: Aegis Care Advisors, which runs home healthcare service provider Care24, has raised $4 million in a fresh round of funding led by venture capital firm SAIF Partners.
Existing investor India Quotient also participated in the round, chief executive officer Vipin Pathak said on Wednesday. The one-year-old company raised $350,000 from India Quotient in September.
Aegis Care will use the fund in enhancing its technology and training service providers who visit patients. The company offers home care visits by nurses, physiotherapists and attendants. The services offered include post discharge care, chronic pain care, bedridden care, physiotherapy, infant care, pre and post natal care, everyday nurses, long term care and assisted living.
These care givers are verified and trained by the company. The training session includes softskill, medical and counselling trainings for one week. These people however need to have a prior two years of experience in the healthcare domain.
Care24 claims to handle 350-400 daily visits to patients’ homes with almost 500 care-givers on board. Overall, it claims to have attended 3,000 patients so far. The target is to cater to one million patients in the next three years.
According to the company, currently almost 80% of the business is coming from geriatric cases—taking care of elderly people. The rest comes from patients with chronic pain and post discharge care.
The company is also planning to add travel assistants for patients who do not have family members to take them to the hospital or bring them back to home etc.
Care24 charges anywhere between Rs.500-800 for one hour visit of a physiotherapist. Long term nurse fee ranges between Rs.25,000-40,000 per month, while an attendant would charge Rs.450-650 for a 12 hour service. The company earns monthly revenue of Rs.50-60 lakh.
“The home healthcare sector is already $2.5 billion and growing because of the demographic shift, convenience, cost and increasing income levels. It is expected to grow to $10 billion in next 5-7 years. Favourable regulatory changes like insurance coverage, taxation and government push would further boost the sector growth,” said Pathak.
Founded in December 2014 by Indian Institute of Technology alumni Pathak, Abhishek Tiwari, Pranshu Sharma and Garima Tripathi, Care24 competes with Portea (HealthVista India Pvt. Ltd) which in September last year raised $37.5 million in a Series B funding round led by Accel Partners, with participation from International Finance Corp. (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, Qualcomm Ventures and Ventureast.
However, while Portea operates across 24 cities, Care24 says that currently it plans to strengthen business in Mumbai. It will expand to other cities only after three months. Industry estimates pegged the home healthcare market in India at more than $2.5 billion.
“Home healthcare market is a large opportunity waiting for organized plays who not just deliver better operations but bring to bear a new approach to the space including leveraging technology, thereby creating a superior value proposition,” said Mridul Arora, principle, SAIF Partners.
[“source-Livemint”]