Buoyed by the funding it received from key investor RoundGlass Partners LLC post acquisition, leading doctor's networking platform, Curofy, is set to double the number of doctors on its platform to 4 lakh by the end of next year. By 2021 the healthcare startup is looking to get 70 per cent of entire medical fraternity on board.
RoundGlass Partners has acquired Curofy earlier this year for an undisclosed amount. Currently 2.2 lakh doctors from 2,000 cities are on Curofy app. Of 2.2 lakh doctors, 25,000 doctors are from Ayush sector.
Developed with an objective to bridge distance among doctors and help them to solve the cases, Curofy, a mobile app, offers doctors a spam-free and secure environment to communicate with each other. Doctors can provide referrals, discuss cases, call other doctors without saving numbers and have access to most recent, specialty-wise developments taking place in various fields of medicine, thus providing them a platform for collaborative learning.
Shedding light on recent initiatives undertaken by Curofy, its co-founder Mudit Vijayvergiya said “Curofy is constantly bringing in something new to the table which is helpful for the doctors. Apart from our main aim of enabling doctors to discuss difficult cases with each other, we have come up the a series of features recently such as Library which provides knowledge aggregated from various sources and partners to help doctors in staying updated in their practice. This includes clinical decision support tools, guidelines, journals, quizzes etc. As part of this initiative, the company recently integrated the BMJ Best Practice app inside the app.”
Around 400 medical cases across all the specialties are discussed on the platform daily. So far 2.5 medical cases were discussed on the platform, he added.
“Genie is another feature added to the app which connects doctors with service providers who fulfill different needs of doctors like getting unsecured loans, buying medical devices, finding jobs or staff, insuring their practice and taking medico-legal advice. Curofy partnered with Bajaj Finserv as part of this initiative to provide loans to thousands of Curofy users,” he informed.
Initially, Curofy which started operation in 2015, raised the capital, in the dramatic, reality television-type formatted Young Turks TiE the Knot at TiEcon in October 2014. The venture raised $150,000 following strong interest from many investors post the event. Also, it raised an undisclosed Pre-Series funding from RoundGlass in October 2015. Post acquisition, the three co-founders — Nipun Goyal, Pawan Gupta and Mudit Vijayvergiya — continue to run the company.
The company started making revenue in January 2017 and had reached close to breaking even by last year. With the industry already going digital, Curofy has been fortunate enough to have industry stalwarts like Sanofi, Dr Reddy’s, Pfizer, Glenmark, BI, Cipla, GE Healthcare, Medtronic, Boston Scientific, Dr Lal Pathlabs and Bajaj Finserv as its clients. And, it is off to a good start.
The industry is expected to spend about US$ 20 billion by 2020 for reaching out to the doctors. A significant chunk of that can go digital, said Vijayvergiya.
Talking about growth plans, he said “We want to lead the Indian market first by getting a foothold of the major stakeholders in the country. We would also like to increase and improve the quality and quantity of the cases for our case repository. Since the company has a very strong financial backing, Curofy’s priority is engagement of doctors over revenue.”
“We will first look to conquer the Indian market and then go to other markets. We are also looking to expand beyond India in developing markets and have run pilots in Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, and Nigeria etc. However, our aim will always be adding value to the doctors. We are constantly trying to innovate and introduce new features to make their life better,” he concluded.
Besides India, about 10-15 doctors are being registered on the platform mostly from China, Dubai and US daily.