India Gets A New Healthtech Unicorn In Pristyn Care
The firm specialising in secondary-care surgeries raised $96 million in growth funding, valuing it at over $1 billion.
Pristyn Care, a healthtech startup specialising in secondary-care surgeries, has raised $96 million (around Rs 733 crore) in growth funding, catapulting it into the unicorn club.
The fresh funding round, led by Sequoia Capital, Tiger Global, Winter Capital, Epiq Capital, Hummingbird Ventures and Trifecta Capital, valued the startup at $1.4 billion (Rs 10,693 crore), GHV Advanced Care Pvt., the operator of Pristyn Care, said in a statement on Wednesday.
That doubled its valuation in eight months, taking it into the league of startups valued at least $1 billion (around Rs 7,638 crore). And it joins API Holdings Pvt., the parent of PharmEasy, among healthcare unicorns.
The round also saw the participation of entrepreneurs-turned-angel investors like Kunal Shah, founder and chief executive officer of CRED; Deepinder Goyal, co-founder and chief executive officer of Zomato; Abhiraj Singh Bhal, co-founder and chief executive officer of Urban Company; and Varun Alagh, co-founder and chief executive officer of Mamaearth.
"A large number of patients from small towns have to travel, sometimes hundreds of kilometres, to seek quality surgical care in nearby metro cities,” Dr Garima Sawhney, co-founder, Pristyn Care, was quoted as saying said in the statement. “We aim to bridge this accessibility gap in the surgery space and take superior quality surgeries to patients in tier 2 & 3 cities of the nation.”
The three-year-old company will use the funds raised to enhance its offerings by adopting the latest surgical technologies, and enter newer disease categories. A part of the investment will also go towards strengthening and modernising partner-hospital infrastructure, training surgeons and developing its product and technology.
The startup plans to increase its footprint to over 50 cities and 1,000 surgical centres and double its team size by March 2022.
“With technology as the backbone of its operations, the company will hire highly qualified engineers, who will form a quarter of its new workforce,” the statement said. At present, it operates via 150 clinics and 700 partner hospitals with a panel of experienced doctors who work exclusively for the company.
The Bengaluru-based firm, which operates a chain of multi-specialty clinics for planned surgeries, is said to have scaled five times since January 2021 and expects to turn profitable in the next 12-18 months.
Its network spans seven metro cities—Mumbai, Pune, Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai and Kolkata-and 33 tier 2 and 3 cities.