Hardeep Singh
Introduction
If we suggested it, you would very probably arrange an appointment before going to a clinic for a routine medical examination. Using Practo, however, this can be done in a matter of seconds.
People all across the world are always concerned about their health. They are constantly in need of experienced support to address their problems. People are concerned about their skin, hair, and nails, even if it isn’t a major issue. They believe that whatever direction they are given is insufficient, therefore they demand more.
Practo is a new online appointment scheduling service for doctors and other healthcare professionals. It is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week to answer your questions and quickly handle a variety of health-related issues. It also provides contact information for all participating centres. Learn more about the Practo startup by clicking here.
Both doctors and patients can now use Practo India for free. It claims that its customers will find ways to live a healthier lifestyle. As of September 2021, Practo is anticipated to be worth between Rs 124.3 crores.
How Practo came into existence
Shashank ND and Abhinav Lal earned bachelor’s degrees in 2007 from the National Institute of Technology in Surtakal, Karnataka. Unlike their peers and coworkers, who all chose to find work through placements, these two decided to start their own businesses. Being twenty years old and wanting to start your own business is a high-risk decision.
However, if you are successful, you would be richly rewarded, and it was with this goal and determination that they accepted the risk, and there was no turning back. As a result, Practo, one of the country’s largest health-care companies, embarked on its journey. Shashank and Lal’s goal was straightforward: to digitise online healthcare. Practo was meant to assist them with this.
Few employees knew what digitalization and technology were when they started their employment, let alone how to use them. Not only that, but shifting the entire company to the internet was a foggy and risky proposition. It’s not surprising that this concept was rejected, given India’s inadequate internet ecosystem in 2008.
On the other hand, these men sensed the country’s future potential which was back then quite uncertain. They planned to leverage Practo to allow patients to book doctor appointments, establish a software platform for storing digital health information, and eliminate the need for manual entry and analogue systems everytime a patient saw their doctor. The programme also reminds patients about upcoming appointments, offers images or scans that are needed for therapy, and handles accounting and billing.
Ideation behind this startup-logo and innovative branding
The purpose of forming this organisation in India was to reduce patient misunderstanding and harassment during medical treatment. The goal of the organisation was to bring the complete medical value chain together in a single digitally enabled website or app.
The tagline for Practo is “Your Home for Health.” Its goal is to deliver the finest possible service to its clients. Its mission is to motivate customers to simplify their lives. The Practo logo is symmetrical, yet it takes advantage of the words’ unique interactions between letters.
The colours dark and sky blue are used to convey a sense of calm and togetherness, which is important in the medical field. At the beginning and conclusion of the word Practo, two sky blue dots appear.
Funding, Mergers and Acquisitions
Practo has raised a total of $228.2 million over seven fundraising rounds. Trifecta Venture Debt Fund, on the other hand, is seeking approximately Rs 60 crore in debt financing from the company. According to MCA documents, the financing would be delivered in six installments, with the first tranche of Rs 15 crore going to the health tech platform in May 2021. Practo’s most recent round of funding was $32 million from A1A Company in August 2020.
Practo has so far purchased five businesses, including Enlightiks, which was sold in a fire sale to US-based consulting firm Mango Solutions. Entrackr was the first to report the deal in December of last year. Enlightiks was purchased by Practo for $14 million four years back.
After a three-year pause, Practo has raised $32 million in a fresh round of fundraising, with a 50% drop in valuation. A1A Company, a Chinese life insurance company, led the round with a $20 million investment, according to Singapore regulatory filings.
While Practo’s financial health in FY19 could not be judged because the company has yet to release important papers, financial measures are unlikely to have improved much.
The company’s broad purpose appears to have come at a hefty expense, rather than focusing on individual locales. Practo focuses on finding and managing doctors and hospitals, as well as telemedicine, e-pharmacy, insurance, and lending.
Growth and Future prospects
As a result of its aggressive marketing, the company now has 10,000+ doctors and 30k monthly scheduled appointments in its system. They have nearly ten million computerised patient records, and the number is increasing year by year. They see approximately 7.5 million unique patients and make over 7 million visits each year. This company’s revenue has climbed by 50 to 100 percent year over year.
The company’s objective is to become a one-stop shop for patients looking for the best doctors and making appointments. If we continue down this road, we will have a lot more patients. They have announced the launch of a monthly health care package under the Practo Plus brand.
This would be a subscription-based healthcare service that would offer unlimited online consultations with doctors from more than twenty professions. In addition, to overcome the linguistic difference between patients and doctors, the firm has provided online medical consultations in 15 distinct Indian languages. Patients can now choose a doctor who speaks their preferred language.
With this, it is correct to conclude that Practo is one of the healthcare platforms that has made a reputation for itself in terms of innovation and critical thinking. We’d like to see more platforms in the name of startups emerge in the future.
