The Indian home healthcare sector is pegged at Rs 12,000 crore, concentrated in eight metros. Focussed in Delhi and Mumbai markets, it is growing at 30% CAGR
Zoctr, a home healthcare start-up, will soon close a bigger round of Series A funding from a set of venture capital (VC) investors. The three-year old firm had recently closed a pre-Series A funding from a clutch of angel investors viz. Dubai-based NB Ventures and a host of other angel investors including Udaipur Angel Network etc. In all, the healthcare start-up has raised a little over Rs 10 crore for its business so far.
Speaking with DNA Money, Nidhi Saxena, founder and chief executive officer, Zoctr.com, said, we have already raised a pre-Series A funding earlier this month. “We are very close to raising a bigger cheque of between Rs 30 crore and Rs 40 crore. The idea is to be very focused on unit metrics. Some of our biggest competitors have a cash loss of Rs 40 to Rs 50 crore. We don’t want to go that way and be very disciplined about the way we spend our investment dollars. The plan is to create a profitable business at a very early stage,” she said adding that the new fund raise will happen in the coming weeks.
Zoctr’s business model involves billing the patient / family member on the entire value of the resource it provides. “It includes daily charges for attendants that are Rs 700 while in the case of nurses it is Rs 1,500. The intensive care unit (ICU) rates go from Rs 8,000 to Rs 10,000 per day as against hospitals that charge between Rs 40,000 and Rs 80,000 per day. So we make a 30% gross margin after excluding the direct costs. And on a net basis we are seeing close to 17% in earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (ebitda). And the best part is that Zoctr has turned cash positive this year (around April / May) and we are not burning cash anymore. This financial year, we are expecting to achieve ebitda positive in just a little over three years since inception,” said Saxena.
The home healthcare sector in India is currently pegged at Rs 12,000 crore concentrated in eight metros and further focussed in Delhi and Mumbai markets, growing at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of about 30%. Approximately Rs 6,000 crore is staffing (nurses, attendants, doctors and physiotherapists) and the balance is medical equipment, home diagnostics/ tests, home pharmacy delivery, etc.
“Right now the organised sector, between the four, five big names are doing around Rs 100 crore of business. So we are still looking at an opportunity of Rs 5,900 crore – Rs 6,000 crore minus Rs 100 crore,” said Saxena.
Saxena launched Zoctr back in 2014 after her first entrepreneurial venture Karmic Lifesciences Inc got acquired by Cliantha Research, a subsidiary of pharmaceutical major Zydus Cadila. The new venture has been growing fast dominating Mumbai and Delhi markets and is considered among the top three players.
Zoctr, which currently has four-city presence including Bangalore and Pune, competes head-on with some of the leading national players like Healthvista owned Porte Medical and HealthCare atHome (HCAH) – a joint venture between the Burman family, the promoters of Dabur and founders of HAH, UK. In addition there are a few other players like Medwell Ventures owned Nightingales Home Health Services and Care24 that have been operating in the market for some time now. “We are the only other player with a four-city operations and expanding,” she said.
The company had earlier introduced its Zoctr mobile application in the market with 3,500 to 4,000 qualified/ verified healthcare people enlisted in the database. However, after the next two-three months, the company plans to take this number to 10,000 blue-collar workers and will be the single biggest database of such people in the healthcare space in India.
“Customers can book the service just like they book a cab from the aggregator's (Uber / Ola) mobile application. Pay through digital modes of payments (PayU / Paytm) or choose to pay later. We believe even if we get 1,000 doctors on the application every month, the revenues will jump three-fold and we see our revenues easily crossing Rs 40-50 crore as compared to Rs 10 crore at present. We will soon be launching a first of its kind service in India, a remote monitoring service. The users get a wearable unit, a fitbit type cardiac watch to be precise that will look at the person’s heart rate, blood pressure rate and also EKG or ECG on a real time basis,” said Saxena adding that home chemotherapy is another area that’s been piloted and will get introduced very soon.
BOOSTER DOSE
- The Indian home healthcare sector is pegged at Rs 12,000 crore, concentrated in eight metros. Focussed in Delhi and Mumbai markets, it is growing at 30% CAGR
- Of this, approximately Rs 6,000 crore is staffing (nurses, attendants, doctors and physiotherapists) and the balance is medical equipment, home diagnostics/ tests, home pharmacy delivery, etc
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 "Nidhi Saxena")
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