Home healthcare company Portea Medical on Thursday said it has acquired home medical equipment services provider Health Mantra India Pvt Ltd.
The acquisition, which was made for an undisclosed consideration of cash and stock, is expected to help Portea expand into large home healthcare areas such as sleep medicine, respiratory care, geriatric care and orthopaedics.
Commenting on the acquisition, Meena Ganesh, MD & CEO of Portea, said: “Portea is deeply committed to providing our patients with convenient and affordable solutions for all their healthcare needs. Medical equipment is often an integral element of effective home healthcare, especially in areas such as diabetes, oncology, orthopaedics, geriatric care, sleep and respiratory disorders. Our acquisition of Health Mantra augments Portea’s offering and underlines our customer focus.”
Health Mantra, launched here in 2009 by Ashish Bhutada and Anoop Kodoli, has a team of over 30 biomedical engineers, physiotherapists and service staff and a service network across Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Maharashtra.
Bhutada, who serves the company as MD and CEO, said: “Our alignment with Portea provides us with a wider canvas to expand our operations across product lines and locations. There is a huge untapped demand in the country that we are looking to serve with patient-centric and holistic solutions.”
The market in India for medical equipment that can be used in a home-based setting is estimated at ₹10,000 crore per annum. Equipment rental has driven growth as the industry evolves from the earlier ‘sales-only’ model.
Acquisition spree Portea acquired specialty pharmaceutical distributor MedybizPharma in November 2015 to deliver better pharmacy care to patients with chronic conditions who have ongoing needs for medication.
This January, it picked up a majority stake in PSTakeCare, a health-tech start-up which offers information to patients on doctors, hospitals and labs for any medical procedure. “The acquisitions we make are driven by customer demand in those areas,” said Ganesh.
Portea employs more than 5,000 people and handles over 70,000 home visits a month across 24 cities nationwide.
It focuses on general primary healthcare, post-hospitalisation care, chronic disease management and allied services such as diagnostics and medical equipment on hire.
Fund-raising In September 2015, Portea received Series B funding of $37.5 million from Accel, IFC, Qualcomm Ventures and Ventureast.