VCCircle

Exclusive: HealthcareMagic, a medical consultation and referral portal, allows users to interact live with doctors.

Rx HealthCare Magic, which runs a healthcare portal HealthcareMagic.com, has raised Series A funding of $2.5 million from Accel India, VCCircle has learned. Kunal Sinha, founder and CEO of Rx HealthCare Magic, has confirmed the investment. The funding will be released in tranches as company meets its milestones.

Bangalore-based HealthcareMagic is a medical consultation and referral portal which allows users to interact live with doctors. It currently has around 50 employees, which include 34 doctors. While some of these doctors are full time employees, others are consultants on contract.  The company earns its revenues through medical consultations online and via telephone.

While payment for online consultations is done through credit cards, for telephone, it has signed up with network operators. The mobile phone consultations are done at charges of Rs 8-10 per minute, said Sinha. HealthcareMagic has tied up with five operators - Reliance Communications, Idea Cellular, Aircel, BPL Mobile and Tata Teleservices, while only BPL is live currently.

The company was providing its services free of cost for 10 months between January and October '08, after which it wwent pay. "We would be cash flow positive in next 3-4 months," said Sinha. It has clocked more than half a million medical interactions since its launch.

Sinha expects usage to rise once the agreements with operators are active. "When we signed up with BPL, there was a surge in mobile calls by more than 8-10%," adds Sinha. 

It has also signed up with insurers like ICICI Lombard and Bajaj Allianz, under which policyholders can consult as part of their policy. HealthcareMagic is similar to US websites like WebMD and Revolution Health, which have gained significant traction. In October 2008, Revolution Health merged with Waterfront Media in a deal valued at $300 million.

Expansion Plans

HealthcareMagic plans to invest the funds on technical infrastructure, which involves expansion of internet servers, call centre, call recording etc. The company also plans to expand sales and marketing and invest in operations.

This is the second venture of  Sinha, an IIT Kanpur graduate. Sinha had earlier started Techunified, a software product firm, which was sold to Sarabhai Group firm ORG Informatics in 2007.

Accel India, which was known as Erasmic Venture Funds before merging with US-based venture capital firm Accel Partners last year, is investing out of its recently closed $60 million fund. Its portfolio companies include Chakpak, DoveTail, HolidayIQ, Inbiopro, Kaati Zone, Kirusa, MuSigma, Myntra, Perfint, Sconce and Virident.