Care24 to expand to 5 more cities in a year

After offering personal and affordable healthcare assistance within the comfort of one’s home in Delhi and Mumbai for close to 36 months, home healthcare service provider Care24 is looking to expand its services to five more cities in the next 12 months.

Vipin Pathak, co-founder and Chief Executive of Care24, told BusinessLine that the company had identified 12 cities for expansion, of which five would be operationalised within the next 12 months.

Selected cities

The prospective cities where the first phase of expansion is to happen are Bengaluru, Chennai, Thiruvananthapuram, Chandigarh and Ludhiana .

Emphasising the need for affordable personalised healthcare at the patient’s home rather than the hospital, he said India’s geriatric population (60-plus years) is currently at over a hundred million. This is expected to grow to 325 million by 2050.

The incidence of chronic diseases is increasing rapidly both amongst the young and old. It is estimated that lifestyle diseases alone will account for a whopping 74 per cent of total deaths by 2030 as against 56 per cent in 2008 with cardiovascular, cancer and diabetes accounting for the maximum number of deaths.

With increasing urbanisation and the prevalence of the nuclear family set-up in India, in-home healthcare for the aged is becoming a necessity. In-home healthcare service in Mumbai alone is huge, he said and added that an estimated 5-7 lakh patients required the service.

“With insurance companies now approaching us to include such services for cover, the scope is expanding,” Pathak added.

Care24 has, since inception in 2015, successfully helped over 40,000 patients in Mumbai and Delhi with its network of nurses, physiotherapists and attendants. The company works as an extended arm of the hospital at the patient’s home.

“We will require help from hospitals in two ways in the locations we are looking to expand our services. First, we will need to partner with the hospitals to understand the patient’s requirement for in-home healthcare, including critical care, and to ensure how we can continue the care in a hassle-free way.”

Besides providing in-home healthcare services, Care24 is also looking at specific areas such as specialised medical delivery, providing complete care, diagnostic and medical equipment services. The challenge is in retaining the trained hands.

“We have imparted training to around 3,000 individuals till now. Only 50 per cent of these trained staff are with us now. There is huge demand for trained home care professionals,” Pathak said.

Funds raising

The company raised $4 million in 2016 in its Series A round led by venture capital firm SAIF Partners and $350,000 from India Quotient. These funds are being used to enhance technology and train care-givers.

The start-up is planning to raise funds soon. “We are looking to raise $10 million, say in six months,” he said. Care24 is currently serving 1,000 patients a day. It is aiming to reach 2,500 patients a day within the next one year.