Recent times have seen how the quick commerce sector has gained traction and evolved from its nascent stage to a strong sector. However, while firms like Blinkit, BigBasket, and Swiggy bring groceries and other essentials to our doorstep in 10 minutes, the same cannot be said of emergency and ambulance services. Considering that the pandemic continues to persist even after two years have passed, one could argue that the latter is more urgent.
This is where healthtech company Stanplus comes in. India, despite accelerating spends on access to primary healthcare, continues to see large number of deaths due to lack of timely emergency healthcare access. Most of India’s middle-class and rich depend on private hospitals for even the basic of tests. According to India’s own National Family Health Survey – III, in India, the private medical sector remains the primary source of healthcare for the majority of households in both urban areas (70%) and rural areas (63%).
StanPlus, an innovative SaaS venture in the healthtech domain, is looking to change that and has hence raised $20 million in debt and equity funding. This latest Series A funding round included participation from marquee investors, including HealthQuad, Kalaari Capital, and HealthX. This round also included participation from Pegasus, the family office of Hiranandani Group; Sandeep Singhal, senior adviser at Avaana Capital, and other angel investors. The debt was raised from N+1 capital.
The online ambulance aggregator, founded in 2016 by Prabhdeep Singh, Antoine Poirson, and Jose Leon, aims to utilize the fresh funding to expand its operations to 500 hospitals across the country. It also plans to launch its Red Ambulance brand in 15 cities, an improvement from the five cities it is currently present in. Funds will also be deployed to make recruitments and enhance its technology.
If that is not all, Stanplus has an aim to reduce its response time of offering ambulance services from fifteen minutes to eight minutes. The startup had earlier raised $1.5 million in March 2020 and $1.1 million before that.
The Hyderabad-based Stanplus works with hospitals and offers software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions to help them manage their emergency responses by offering ambulance services. It also helps callers get quick responses by connecting them to the nearest available ambulance.
Stanplus’ service is crucial at a time when the pandemic has run rampant in a country whose population numbers are in the billions, and the healthcare system is stretched thin. The pandemic saw an average hospital respond to about 30% of their emergency calls.
The answer rate of Stanplus, which has a network of 3000 Advanced Life Support (ALS) ambulances, is 97% in under two seconds. Add to that the rising number of cases and the inadequate and inefficient medical emergency response system (ERS) in the country, and you get a picture as to why the services of firms like Stanplus are needed.
