And here’s some more Chinese money into Indian startup ecosystem. Just days after Alibaba led a $500 Mn round into Snapdeal, another Chinese Internet Behemoth Tencent, is now leading a fresh $90 Million round into Practo, a healthcare platform letting you schedule appointments from the best docs across the country, in a highly convenient manner.
While the round was led by Tencent, it saw participation from other heavyweights too, including Belgian investment firm Sofina and existing investors Sequoia Capital. Google Capital and Yuri Milner’s DST Global have also participated in the current round.
Multiple reports have pegged the post-funding valuation to $525 Million, making Practo perhaps the most valuable health-care startup in the country. The investment will also mark Tencent’s debut into one of the fastest growing start-up ecosystems in the world.
The round has many other firsts attached to it. For example, Practo will become one of the most well-funded health-care startups globally, with only the U.S. based ZocDoc standing a chance, largely due to its recent $98 Million funding round.
This will be Practo’s second funding round in a span of six months, reflecting the rapid growth this startup has witnessed. In February, the company had raised a $30 Million Series B round co-led by Matrix Partners and Sequoia Capital.
Ever since its last funding round, Practo, like many other well-funded Indian startups lately, has been acquiring smaller companies operating within the healthcare domain. All of those acquisition looked clearly well-planned and strategised, as they helped practo expand into other healthcare domains like enterprise and preventive medicine.
Most recent of those acquisitions being Genii, through which Practo entered into enterprise healthcare space. The buy-out, which was more of an acqui-hire, allowed Practo to enter a largely untapped enterprise healthcare vertical. Prior to that, the company had acquired Fitho Wellness,which is a fitness platform focussing on preventive healthcare.
The startup also strengthened its leadership lately, when it brought in Anshumani Ruddra and Tarun Bhambra to lead its new products team which will work on professional networking and prescriptions.
However, despite massive funding, Practo will continue to face stiff competition from other notable Indian healthcare startups like Lybrate, which provides a unique platform for patients to cosult doctors anonymously. The startup nabbed $10.2 Million in its recent funding round.
Over 1.5 lakh doctors are listed on the service in over 35 Indian cities on Practo, with over 8,000 hospitals on its platform.
