Kenko Health Raises $1.7 Mn Pre-Series A Funding With BEENEXT And Orios As Lead Investors The investment will primarily be used for product development specifically in the OPD space and expanding the core team

Kenko Health, a health insurtech company, has raised $1.7 million as part of its pre-Series A round with BEENEXT and Orios as co-lead investors. This round also saw participation from Accelerator VC 9Unicorns and Waveform Ventures.

The investment will primarily be used for product development specifically in the OPD space and expanding the core team.

"Their unique subscription model and focus on overall healthcare including OPD makes Kenko a disruptor in this space. We are excited to be partnering with Kenko Health in their pursuit to make health insurance affordable and accessible to the larger Indian population," said Rahul Maheshwari, investment team, BEENEXT.

In the Indian health insurance space, most companies only focus on covering hospitalization costs. On average, close to 75 per cent of an individual's lifetime healthcare expenses are incurred outside of a hospital. This includes doctor fees, medicine expenses, diagnostic tests, and even non-prescription products and services such as infant care, vision care, dental care, hair and skincare, and so on. In the current healthcare system, most of these are loosely termed OPD (outpatient department costs) and are usually not covered by any form of Insurance. Kenko believes that the key to protecting people's health and wealth lies in covering all healthcare expenses: large and small, medical and OTC (over-the-counter), preventive and curative.

"Kenko is all set to provide a peace-of-mind plan for the first-time insurance buyer in India who has been unable to access the benefits of insurance due to high premiums, lack of understanding, and absence of a full-stack digital experience. We are excited to partner with BEENEXT on leading this investment," shared Anup Jain, managing partner, Orios Venture Partners.

Keeping customer experience at its core, founders Aniruddha Sen and Dhiraj Goel, set up Kenko Health in 2019. Through Kenko, the founders are looking to build the country's first Health Management Organisation (HMO) - a holistic concept where companies don't just simply cover healthcare expenses, but also, actively manage customers' medical conditions, thereby leading to better long-term health outcomes.

"The health insurance sector in India hasn't received much traction in recent years. Most of the insurance companies operate with traditional health plans and primarily focus on filling their pockets, without looking at customer satisfaction in general. What Kenko is trying to do is truly out of the ordinary. Not only has the company been vocal about this problem but is also trying to create a better business model to provide suitable medical coverage options to their customers while scaling the path of success. We wish them continued success in their future endeavors," commented Dr. Apoorv Ranjan Sharma, co-founder and managing director, 9Unicorns.

Kenko provides comprehensive plans focused on OPD and all subscribers get IPD coverage from an insurance company as part of their membership benefits. Kenko even steps in to fill up the gaps in claims payment by ensuring expenses are paid in full without deductions and also paid out in advance, just before hospital admission.

"We are impressed by the founders' deep domain knowledge and their commitment to simplify healthcare coverage and make it more accessible. Kenko is truly reimagining, with their consumer-friendly offering," noted Arun Tadanki, lead investor, Waveform Ventures.

"At Kenko, customer experience is of primary importance and, toward that end, we set out to create a unique system of benefit payout where the customer receives the cost of treatment directly into their bank account before the treatment starts. With partners such as BEENEXT and Orios backing us, we are confident of giving India's health insurtech a much-needed digital makeover. We are aiming to add 20,000 users to our programme this year and another 100,000 next year," added Aniruddha Sen, co-founder, Kenko Health.

The pandemic has definitely created a surge in demand for health insurance. Reports as of June 2021 state that stand-alone health insurance grew at 55 per cent over the same period in the previous year. Kenko is aiming to tap into this growing market and build a robust healthcare system in the country.