Navia Life Care Raises $1 Mn Funding Led By Anicut Angel Fund The company plans to use the capital for technology, business development, product innovation and development, strategic hiring, and business expansion across India

Delhi-based Navia Life Care, a digital health startup, announced to have secured $1million in funding en route to their Series A raise. The investment was led by Anicut Angel Fund, the equity arm of Anicut Capital, with participation from 9Unicorns and other notable angel investors, including the Healthcare and Life Science practice lead of a top tier strategy consulting firm, Strategic partnerships lead at Google India, and the chief executive officer of a renowned global pharma company.

"It has been our mission to build a "connected" healthcare ecosystem, in order to facilitate improvement in standard of care and patient outcomes. We aim to address a major issue of information asymmetry, which includes lack of availability of electronic medical records for easy access by patients and doctors, or view on prescription patterns for pharma, or even smaller scale issues such as unavailability of waiting times in OPDs for patients or information about drug availability at their nearest drugstore. With the new funding coming in we have an opportunity to build a base for the next leg of our growth and we are grateful to partner with investors who share our vision," said Kunal Kishore Dhawan, co-founder, Navia Life Care.

The fresh funds will be focused on strengthening the company's position as one of the fastest growing digital health startups in India, which is helping in reducing information asymmetry and increasing access to quality health information across the ecosystem. It will further allow the company to use the capital for technology, business development, product innovation and development, strategic hiring, and expansion across all healthcare hubs of India, metro cities along with tier-II and III cities.

"Healthcare in India faces several challenges including access and affordability. Technology can be transformative in delivering healthcare services. In recent times, digital health in India has significantly moved from "Good to have' to "Must have' all because of this pandemic. We are privileged and delighted to partner with Navia Life Care as they march ahead in their mission to re-imagine the health ecosystem for Indians. We are looking forward to accelerating the growth of as well as building a global company," shared Ashvin Chadha, co-founder, Anicut Angel Fund.

Navia Life Care was founded in 2016 by Kunal Kishore Dhawan, Gaurav Gupta and Nupur Khandelwal with a mission to empower the health ecosystem with innovative platforms for improving standard of care and health outcomes across the world. The company has developed a connected care platform that facilitates seamless transmission of information across various stakeholders of the healthcare industry, while generating real-world evidence which is valuable to these stakeholders in increasing their understanding through actionable insights.

"Navia provides a unique AI-based, intuitive and easy to use platform to improve patient outcomes, experience and engagement. Healthcare market in India is still ripe for disruption as digitization is yet to reach even the major metros, leave alone the tier-II and III cities and more. Navia's vision of being a data driven intelligence platform for pharma companies which would dramatically transform the way pharma companies engage with the ecosystem and understand the markets. I have been closely involved with the Navia team for quite some time and have first hand witnessed their passion and determination towards transforming Indian healthcare. They have a strong first mover advantage with the large number of doctors on their platform and a very unique model offering immense value to all stakeholders. I wish them the best for their future endeavors and look forward to working closely with them. I am sure they are going to be a superstar startup out of India catering to the world," commented Sanjiv Bajaj, Jt chairman and managing director, Bajaj Capital and lead investor, Anicut Angel Fund.

"Though India has highly qualified doctors and good medical facilities, healthcare providers still don't talk to each other, which creates friction for the patients who have to carry cumbersome medical files every time they visit doctors. With a platform like Navia, the flow of patient's information between doctors is seamless, leading to efficient treatment mechanisms. We are confident in Navia's vision of disrupting a very broken healthcare ecosystem in India," added Dr. Apoorva Ranjan Sharma, founder and president, 9Unicorns.

Navia Life Care has recorded exponential growth in FY21 with a tenfold jump in revenue and a thirtyfold growth in user base, over last year. It currently serves over 15,000 doctors, spread across 400 cities and towns of India, thereby providing better care to lakhs of patients. It has key partnerships with leading pharmaceutical companies, diagnostic providers and pharmacies, to enable adoption of Navia Connected Care across the country. Navia plans to serve over 200,000 doctors and 200 million patients in over 10 countries by 2025.

The digital health startup is aiming to close a $5 million Series A in the next 3-4 months.