Policy Bazaar, owned by Etech Aces Marketing and Consulting, has invested an amount of $50 million in to its newly floated company DocPrime.
One can presume that the parent company spared these funds from the last tranche of external funding of $200 million received through investments by SoftBank Vision Fund and InfoEdge and others. This was around 4 months back.
Policybazaar claims it is trying to make the healthcare offering more user-friendly by the use of technology as most startups are doing and the funds now inducted will be spent towards this end. The other objective would be to make healthcare more accessible and affordable to a large section of the population that is kept away from it now.
The DocPrime healthcare service covers out-patient (OPD) medical expenses such as consultation fees and diagnostic tests through a monthly subscription format. It does not cover surgeries etc, for which you will have to buy a proper Mediclaim policy and also pharmacy expenses. However, Policybazaar Group may venture into online sale of drugs, as per an Inc42 report.
There is a free chat/consultation within the DocPrime site and if you wish to avail appointments with specialists or getting tests done, there are concessional rates offered. On the anvil is a subscription for OPD that has unlimited tests and doctor consultations.
In order to offer these services DocPrime has enlisted the support of 14,000 doctors and 5000 laboratories across the country. They are offering the service currently only in Delhi/NCR but hope to be able add major cities like Hyderabad, Chennai, Bengaluru and Mumbai by next month. The company has a mission to have 150,000 doctors and 20,000 labs and cover over 100 cities.
DocPrime is also expected to co-opt a Chinese healthcare startup ‘Ping An Good Doctor’ which incidentally has received funding from SoftBank.