Flipkart CTO and WaterBridge Ventures pumps fresh round in LetsMD

Healthcare focused fintech startup LetsMD has raised fresh funding from Ravi Garikipati, CTO & Head of Engineering of Flipkart and WaterBridge Ventures including a consortium of other HNIs syndicated by Singapore-based ThinKuvate and SRI Capital.

While the exact investment amount can’t be ascertained, WaterBridge Ventures invested about Rs 1 crore and Garikipati participated with Rs 10 lakh.

LetsMD is full stack platform to choose doctors, compare prices across hospitals, book appointments and provide loans (via banks and NBFCs). Started in December 2015, the company had made a pivot in early 2017 to add fintech element.

Earlier, it used to address the discovery, transparency and affordability aspects only. The New Delhi-headquartered platform had raised $1 million Pre Series A round from SRI Capital, a venture arm owned by serial entrepreneur Sashi Reddi.

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Founded by Nivesh Khandelwal, Prakhar Gupta, and Tenzin Thargay, LetsMD had secured Rs 1 crore seed round from Calcutta Angels, Letsventure, Anupam Mittal, Apoorva Patni and Currae Healthcare fund for 25 per cent stake in November 2016.

So far, the company claims to on-boarded over 200 hospitals and super specialty chains including Fortis Healthcare, BLK Hospital and Apollo Hospitals in NCR region.

LetsMD competes with Credihealth, Ask4healthcare, and Medipal amongst several others. With increasing disposable income and growing awareness about health insurance, tertiary care segment is poised to go up in coming years.

Presently, cost of special care is high in India and a major section of the population avoids specialty treatment as they can’t pay a hefty sum at one time. While there are banks and a few NBFCs that offer loan for costly treatment, about two-thirds patients fail to avail treatment. Fintech startups such as LetMD and Credihealth can help credit-marginalised section of India.

The development was reported by Paper.vc.