Indian health tech startup Lybrate has raised $3 million in new funding, according to a filing in the U.S., where it is incorporated.
Lybrate declined to comment on the filing, nor would it provide details of the investors who participated in the round.
Make what you will of that cagey response. The company last raised $10.2 million led by Tiger Global in July 2015, which is some time ago. This new capital takes its tally from investors to date to just short of $15 million.
Founded in 2013, Lybrate aims to connect patients with doctors in India and help raise awareness of basic medical practices in the country. The startup’s biggest rival is Practo, which offers doctor-finding, health information and also practice management software for the healthcare industry.
Practo has raised around $180 million from investors, including a recent $55 million Series D led by Chinese internet giant Tencent, to finance an expansion that has taken the Indian company into Southeast Asia and Latin America with plans for further international forays in the future. It hasn’t all been plain sailing, however. Practo laid off 150 staff, around 5-10 percent of its headcount, according to reports last week, although the company shrugged the departures off as regular annual churn.
While it didn’t spill the beans on the funding, Lybrate did tell TechCrunch that it now has over 100,000 verified doctors on its platform. The company claimed that its service sees over six million “interactions” per month — it defines that term as searches, health queries or patient-doctor communication — while it said its apps have been download 4.5 million times.
Lybrate’s last major launch came in May 2016 when it introduced online lab testing that allows a patient sample to be collected right from their home, with results later shared online. The service, Lybrate Lab+, is currently active in Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore. Lybrate’s other services include patient management services for doctors, and remote doctor-patient consultancy.
The company said in a statement that it is seeing “good traction” in India’s second and third tier cities, and it is planning new language options that it believes can connect more rural-based Indians to healthcare options. But, beyond that, Lybrate is keeping quiet on current and future plans.