Bollywood singer Sukhbir invests in health-tech startup MEngage in an extended seed round

By Narinder Kapur

  • 01 Oct 2019
Credit: 123RF.com

MEngage Technologies Pvt. Ltd, a health-technology startup that provides a doctor-patient engagement platform, has raised $100,000 (approximately Rs 70.90 lakh at current exchange rates) in an extended seed funding round from a clutch of investors, including Bollywood singer Sukhbir Singh.

Other investors that participated in the round include Keshav Sharma, the chief executive officer of information technology firm Metacube, and Nikhil Chaudhary and Dipesh Singhal, the founders of Buren, MEngage said in a statement.

Manmohan Singh, chief executive officer at MEngage, said the company will use the funds for completing its Smart OPD and Smart Prescriptions services.

The investment comes after the startup raised $175,000 (around Rs 1.2 crore) in seed funding in July last year. The investors in that seed round included Siddharth Agarwal, chief executive of apparels exporter firm Silk Asia and president of TiE Rajasthan; Mahavir Sharma, chairman of Rajasthan Angel Innovators' Network (RAIN); Amit Singal, co-founder and CEO of support services company Startup Buddy; mobile tech accelerator 100 Co-founders Lab, and others.

“I believe the solution is solving a real problem and saving lots of time of patients,” Sukhbir said in his statement.

MEngage connects doctors with patients through a software-as-a-service (SaaS) app. The platform stores a patient’s medical history on the cloud and allows doctors to manage appointments in real time, and set automated reminders.

The Jaipur-based firm says it works as an enterprise outpatient department (OPD) solution for patients and doctors. It has grown by at least seven times and expects to reach the figure ten-lakh patient figure by the end of November this year.

The firm also has features such as sharing prescriptions, a chat facility, and notifications and blogs that broadcast health tips. It also provides doctors with digital notepads for prescriptions.

Deals in the health-tech segment

Investment activity in the health-tech segment has been strong as startups seek to differentiate themselves by addressing gaps in traditional healthcare models and even offering frontier technology-based solutions.

Last month, Meddo, a health-technology startup that integrates physical and online healthcare services, raised $3 million (about Rs 21.53 crore) in a pre-Series A funding round led by the Philadelphia- and Hyderabad-based SRI Capital.

In the same month, PlusPin Healthcare raised Rs 5.25 crore ($708,720) in its seed round of funding from a clutch of investors of the Indian Angel Network (IAN) including former Google India head Rajan Anandan.

In July, Bengaluru-based mfine mobilised Rs 31 crore ($4.5 million) in debt funding from venture debt firm Alteria Capital. The company uses its artificial intelligence-powered platform to connect patients with doctors for virtual consultations.