Ambulance hailing startup Ambee raises seed funding

Hyderabad-based ambulance integrator startup Ambee has raised an undisclosed fund led by cab-hailing major Uber Technologies Inc.

The funding round also saw participation from Ahmedabad-based early-stage investor anAmaya Capital LLP and some angel investors as reported by VCCircle.

Recently, Uber co-founder and former CEO Travis Kalanick had committed to invest a handsome $50,000 in Ambee, after the latter won in UberPitch, a country-wide competition held in December last year, along with two other start-ups.

Many people lose their lives because of unavailability of medical aid and ambulance at the right time.  And in today’s technical and smart phone-enabled world, getting an ambulance in quick time is nearly impossible. Even in urban areas, it takes almost 40-60 minutes to get an ambulance.

The 108-emergency services are currently operational in 20 states but there are over 6 million deaths in a year due to delay in emergency medical services. According to Indian Medical Association (IMA), the country's medical emergency services should ideally be in a position to cover a five-minute emergency time. So, solving this pain-point was somewhere in the mind of the founders of Ambee.

Ambee was founded in 2016 by Jaimon Jose and Rohit Kumar who were a job holders at companies like Google and Apple. The duo left their lucrative job and aimed at providing great ambulance services to people of India.

“Right now cities have three to four times the ambulances they need but it is difficult to discover the nearest ambulance. That is the problem we are trying to solve,” Jose said.

Technology and revenue model of Ambee

Ambee is building a network of existing ambulances in the market. They have a call centre for customers to get in touch with them, and also planning to launch their app soon. Ambee uses mobile, mapping and location tracking technologies automatically find the nearest available ambulances and dispatch one with accurate directions. This will help in easy access of ambulances with efficient drivers, paramedics and high quality vehicles and equipment.

The business model for the company is a completely transparent and complies with the standard pricing system in the market. It charges 10-20 per cent commission on cost of the rides ranging from Rs 500-2,000 which depends on the distance covered, type of the ambulance and its facilities. The rides will be priced on a per kilometre basis and Ambee will take a commission on the fare. This will make a win-win situation for both consumers and service providers.

Prior to this, Ambee had raised $200,000 through angel investors from the US and Middle East. The startup was also slected in the top 140 startups at the NASSCOM Product Conclave 2016 and is a NASSCOM 10000 Startup and Mobile 10X (an Internet and Mobile Association of India, IAMAI, initiative) incubated company.