Rajan Anandan, Indian Angel Network backs Healthcare Startup PregBuddy
IMT News Desk
Focused on creating prominence in care for expecting mothers, Bangalore based startup PregBuddy has raised an undisclosed amount in a Seed round of funding from Indian Angel Network - India’s first and arguably the world’s largest business angel network. Other investors who participated in the round include - Rajan Anandan, an IAN Member & MD Google India, Madhusudhan Kannan, Chief Business Officer of Uber India & Emerging Markets, Jayant Kadambi, Co-Founder & Chairman of YuMe and Puneet Gupt, COO(News Business) of Times Internet Limited among others. Renowned Angel investor and Founder of India’s 1st healthcare incubator-HealthStart, Pradeep K Jaisingh, is the lead IAN member joining the company board.
Addressing a huge gap, PregBuddy ensures timely & easy delivery of high quality medical care through their continuum platform between doctors and their expecting patients, through their journey-from preconception to the early years of motherhood. The platform offers personalized healthcare via peer support, organized information, expert access for nutrition, fitness & emotional advice, in addition, to affordable access to essential products & services.
PregBuddy was co-founded in October 2016 by IIT graduates Sivareena and Subhadeep Mondal when one of Sivareena’s cousin underwent a miscarriage in her 4th month of her pregnancy. The domain then caught their attention and together, the couple decided to work in the healthcare space and bring about a positive change in people’s lives. What started with a WhatsApp group initially led them to build a pregnancy application which was the first peer-to-peer instant reassurance platform for expecting mothers based on their location, trimester, language, region and past medical conditions.
PregBuddy has already seen a traction of over 60,000 users, and has been growing organically by 20%, monthover-month, which is phenomenal success so far in this domain. Most of their users are first-time moms, living in nuclear families who find the PregBuddy App very useful like a companion throughout the pregnancy.
Commenting on the investment, lead IAN investor Pradeep K Jaisingh said “Technology is playing a defining role in today’s healthcare system both for enhancing quality and improving access to healthcare in India. PregBuddy has emerged as an exciting new platform for both caregivers and patients alike, leading to great improvements in patient satisfaction, reduced costs and improved health outcomes. The company has had phenomenal success so far in this domain and we believe they will continue to excel in the industry to be a market leader.”
“Over the past 1.5 years we’ve seen the impact of our product on expecting mothers’ lives. Every day we have at least 100 mothers who are delivering their babies after using PregBuddy. This provides us immense satisfaction and boost to our team to do more. We plan to utilize this investment to expand our team and scale up the platform. We’re actively looking to hire few passionate people in fields of technology, marketing and business development who will join our core-team and work closely with the cofounders and grow along with them.” said S.L. Sivareena, Cofounder & COO at PregBuddy.
The startup was selected by Google for their first cohort of Solve for India and its Launchpad Build program. They have recently been awarded by actor Akshay Kumar, Asian Business Angel Forum, and DST - Government of India for their contribution in healthcare sector.
