Health and travel platform Hospals raises $3.5 mn in pre-series A round

Hospals, a cross border health benefits & travel platform, announced a fund raise of $3.5 million in its Pre-Series A investment from Inflection Point Ventures, 9Unicorns, Singapore based Wavemaker and prominent angels like Kunal Shah, Sanjeev Mishra and Razorpay founders. Existing investor Venture Catalysts has also participated in the current round.

The funds raised will be used for expanding geographically to reach $900 million in GMV, serving 1.5 million subscribers & patients to get medical & cosmetic treatments across the world.

The startup has already served over 22,000 patients from 38 countries to get medical advice, teleconsults and surgical treatments across over a hundred hospitals in its network. Its health benefits membership, called Hospals Assured, enables subscribers from Africa/Asia to get unlimited doctor teleconsults and free surgical treatments upto $15,000 across Indian hospitals.

Vinay Bansal, Founder & CEO, Inflection Point Ventures says, “Healthcare expenses which include treatment costs and travelling expenditure can be daunting for a family. Having a guided advisory from companies like Hospals can ease the stress as their model connects you with the best doctors and surgeons in their respective disciplines. They also provide translation & residential assistance close to the hospitals. Hospals sit at the crossroads where it is helping patients and medical professionals.”

Hospals was founded by Danish Ahmed, Obaidullah and Suneel Kapur. Hospals uses its proprietary recommendation engine to find the best surgeons & cosmetic clinics for patients depending on their location, treatment & budget. Its network of over 400 Hospals Health Consultants across 30 countries provides local counselling and support to ensure a seamless experience for the patient.

Apoorva Ranjan Sharma, Co-Founder of 9Unicorns and Venture Catalysts, said, “India is one of the largest and fastest growing market for medical tourism on the back of affordability and accessibility of high-quality healthcare treatments. Hospals has been at the centre of expanding this market. Hospals has reinvented itself to cater to the rising demand from this sector by facilitating end to end services including providing medical loans to the patients.”

“Hospals started with a single vision to provide Universal Health Coverage. Through Hospals Assured, International Telehealth and our concierge travel services, Hospals is enabling people across Asia & Africa to access healthcare. We’re rapidly expanding our network of hospitals and collecting data points across the spectrum to help patients find the best surgeons and clinics across Asia. We’re solving problems in accommodation, remittances and medicine delivery across the border. We’ll soon launch fintech services like medical loans & crowdfunding to help patients finance their treatments beyond insurance coverage, so that each human has access to the best healthcare globally” said Danish Ahmed, who Co-Founded Hospals after quitting his role as Vice President at Paytm.

Danish had earlier founded Yebhi.com (sold to Flipkart) and Shopsity (acquired by Paytm) before launching Hospals. The company had raised Rs 10 crore in earlier investments from Venture Catalysts, Spiral Ventures and Innoven.

Medical tourism is a $78 billion industry globally and was growing at 25% CAGR before covid brought international travel to a halt. With millions of patients waiting for surgeries since the past 2 years and thousands of medical travel companies shutting operations during Covid, Hospals is rapidly scaling its operations to service this backlog.