BeatO, the Delhi based health-tech start up, today announced the closure of its Pre-Series A round of ₹ 11.75 Crores (~US $1.714 million). Orios Venture Partners led the funding round with participation from existing investors -Blume Ventures, Leo Capital and Vishal Sampat.
BeatO
focuses on meeting the end to end needs of a person with diabetes. As
is commonly known, a diabetes management program requires regular
exercise, controlled diet, medicines and diagnostics and regular
monitoring of blood sugar. BeatO helps a diabetic self-manage these
activities by providing a full-stack of services and products on a web
and app ecosystem. The consumer starts to use BeatO by purchasing their
smartphone -based glucometer that connects with the mobile app.
The
BeatO Glucometer connects to the user’s smartphone and works with the
feature rich BeatO app. The product and its concept is superior to
normal glucometers in the market. The glucometer along with the app
helps you keep a record of all your readings in an organized manner and
connects you to doctors and diabetes educators instantly to get guidance
real time in case readings go out of the desired range. Based on the
sugar readings, it provides instant alerts to family and caregivers too,
and, also predicts HbA1c that is used globally to monitor blood sugar
effectively. Once signed up, the user can order home delivery of
medicines and diagnostics and BeatO’s range of specialty diabetes
friendly food and drinks such as snacks, breakfast cereals, teas, juices
and vinegars. Not just these, one can also buy diabetic footwear and a
range of recently launched Ayurveda products. The app also has a section
of rich video and written content in English and Hindi, comprising
doctor tips, recipes and yoga workshops that simplify diabetes
management.
The company will utilize the funds to increase its user base and revenue, which have grown 10 X over the last 12 months and expand the product line for its flagship glucometer and FMCG/retail categories. The team will also be investing in R&D, platform upgradation for auto-suggestions basis blood sugar readings and product development in order to come up with new and innovative products and services for its ecosystem, which will enable consumers to manage diabetes in a better way.
Speaking about the recent fund raise, Gautam Chopra, Co-founder, BeatO stated, “We
are thrilled to have Orios Venture Partners onboard our journey. As a
company we are on a mission to scale up a credible full stack
tech-enabled ecosystem for those with diabetes and, help them meet all
of their specific needs to lead a healthy life. With increase in the
disposable income in the Indian middle-class, we foresee an increase in
the discretionary spends. For a diabetic, we expect this to be
channelled into personal management solutions and more consumption of
customized food and retail products.”
Commenting on the fundraise, Anup Jain, Managing Partner at Orios Venture Partners said, “Orios
believes in investing behind strong founders that create disruption in
large markets. Diabetic population in the country has touched 80 Million
and is growing at +6% CAGR. A diabetic consumer spends more than $1000
across different aspects of their medical care and lifestyle in a year.
This is currently a broken experience with
multiple suppliers that don’t talk to each other or to the user on a
common platform. BeatO provides the one place where diabetes can be
monitored and managed with the greatest convenience by the user and his
caregivers, that is necessary in today’s fast paced life. In Gautam and
Yash, we found mission-driven entrepreneurs who were looking to solve
this massive problem. Being close to the problem, their understanding of
the pain points and motivation for solving this ailment is very deep.
As a business model, it is obvious the audience is sticky and the
lifetime value / one time acquisition cost is extremely attractive.”
Arpit Agarwal, Principal, Blume Ventures said, “Lifestyle
diseases are fast becoming an epidemic in India. Managing diabetes
alone is now big enough a market for large businesses to be built.
Hence, we continue to feel excited about the path BeatO is taking.
Through this journey working closely with the founders for more than a
year, we have found them forward looking, imaginative and highly
focused. They have managed to create a very sticky user base with very
limited capital. With Orios' experience in helping build some of India's
top consumer brands, we look forward to accelerating BeatO's quest
towards pre-eminence in Healthcare in India.”
Founded
in end of 2015 by Gautam Chopra and Yash Sehgal, BeatO currently serves
50,000 diabetic customers in more than 1,500 cities and is currently
fulfilling over 15,000 transactions a month. It had previously raised a
seed fund from Blume Ventures and Leo Capital in 2017.
BeatO
is a full stack platform where all needs of a person with diabetes are
met under one roof. BeatO was started by Gautam Chopra and Yash Sehgal
in Sep 2015 with the vision to help diabetics make the right choices and
manage their lifestyles with convenience and confidence. At the heart
of their business is the Smartphone Glucometer that plugs the consumer
into BeatO's app ecosystem. It not only helps measure and monitor blood
glucose over time, it also opens up to a world of made-for-diabetics
FMCG products for breakfast, snacks, specialty food, and a whole
marketplace of doctors, educators, diagnostics, medicines refills and
insurance products.
Blume Ventures is a seed and pre-series A venture fund that backs technology startups with both funding as well as active mentoring and support. Blume has been the most active venture fund in India since 2011, investing in sectors such as deep tech, financial services, healthcare, and education among others. Its current portfolio includes companies such as Grey Orange Robotics, Unacademy, Servify, Tricog Health, Locus and many more.