Indian Healthcare Startup Practo On Path To Profitability

According to World Bank data, India has just 0.7 physicians per 1,000 people compared to 2.8 and 3.5 in the UK and US, respectively. Access to healthcare is one of the pain points that Bangalore-based healthcare startup Practo tries to address.

Practo’s Offerings

Practo was founded in 2008 by Shashank ND and Abhinav Lal while they were still studying engineering at National Institute of Technology, Surathkal, Karnataka. Practo initially started as a healthcare practice management software provider. While most healthcare service providers had been using information systems, they incurred high maintenance costs. Practo was offering a cost efficient cloud-based healthcare Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform (HSP) to deliver healthcare information services with high clinical value and usability. By May 2009, it had closed its first sale to a doctor in Bangalore.

In March 2013, Practo launched the consumer-facing doctor discovery and appointment booking platform, which gave a shot in the arm for its valuation. It provides free listing for doctors and consumers also don’t pay for searches and appointment bookings. Currently, Practo allows consumers to search for doctors and diagnostic labs, book appointments, consult doctors online and order medicines. It manages over 35 million healthcare records, 45 million appointments, over 100 million healthcare searches annually, and connects tens of millions of patients to over 200,000 healthcare practitioners, 8,000 diagnostic centres, and 4,000 wellness and fitness centres in India, Brazil, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore.

Practo has two main products. Practo Ray is a cloud-based, subscription-based practice management software for doctors and clinics. Practo claims to have 90% market share in India.

Practo Reach is a hyper local targeted ad platform that allows hospitals, clinics, and diagnostic centers to advertise to relevant consumers. The company is expanding this service to 100 Indian cities as about 25% of its search traffic comes from smaller cities and towns, where there is huge demand to find and access high quality doctors.