“All it takes is one idea to clear up an impossible hassle,” stated Robert H. Schuller.
The founders of Curofy – Nipun Goyal, Pawan Gupta and Mudit Vijayvergiya – stumbled upon their big idea during a middle of the night coffee ruin one seemingly unspectacular day in 2012. The idea, if you are wondering, become brilliantly simple: a networking app handiest for doctors.
Unlike most healthtech startups that are growing solutions focussed more often than not on patients, Curofy took a truly distinctive method: catering without delay to medical doctors. Looking lower back, this was what enabled the trio to create a sustainable, scalable business, regardless of increasing opposition within the healthcare space.
Since its inception, the healthtech startup has onboarded greater than 220K validated docs throughout 2,500+ cities in India. Having cemented its foothold within the Indian healthtech marketplace, the startup is now seeking to unfold its wings throughout Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Africa.
Through the use of algorithm and gadget mastering, the platform has also controlled to create an exhaustive crowd-sourced virtual repository of scientific cases, whilst at the same time fostering a strong support atmosphere for docs.
So a long way, the Gurugram-established startup has facilitated greater than 250K case discussions between doctors, with the each day common standing at 500+. Armed with a huge network of companions and service providers, Curofy is now aiming to fulfil distinct desires of doctors, such as access to loans, scientific devices, jobs, insurance, clinical choice help and so forth.
Mirroring the startup’s strong numbers are a few certainly outstanding achievements such as prevailing Google’s Launchpad programme in 2015, Medtech Investing London and being one of the Vivatech Paris Winners.
As per Inc42 resources and a VCCircle document, the Gurugram-established healthtech startup these days were given obtained by way of its key investor, RoundGlass Partners, as a part of an all-cash deal envisioned at somewhere among $nine Mn-$12 Mn (INR 60 Cr-INR eighty Cr).
In reaction to Inc42’s query on this development and the manner forward for the startup founders and group, Nipun declined to remark.
Before delving further, allow us to look lower back at the startup’s excellent adventure from the times at IIT Delhi to collecting a registered user base of 220K+.
A Midnight Coffee Break And The Birth Of Curofy
Three formidable IIT Delhi graduates and near friends: Nipun Goyal, an electrical engineer who has labored with Rothschild; Mudit Vijayvergiya, who completed chemical engineering earlier than joining a pharmaceutical consulting company Axtria as an analyst and Pawan Gupta, an electrical engineer who spent two years as an analyst at Deutsche Bank.
The trio went on to start Curofy in 2015, as a networking platform wherein doctors can join and collaborate with each other.
While the preference to launch a business together remained unabated, the trio initially started operating in the healthcare zone and associated themselves with a medical tourism organization. The enterprise, according to Goyal, become moneymaking and supplied exact margins. Essentially, all they needed to do changed into deliver remote places sufferers.
However, along the manner, they controlled to become aware of a bigger trouble that the medical tourism enterprise become thriving on: the dearth of connectivity amongst medical doctors, which was in turn breeding inefficiency. It turned into then that they dropped that enterprise, took jobs with MNCs and persevered to investigate the concept of medical networking in India.
A Value Proposition Based On Real-World Needs
During their conferences with more than 1,000 docs between 2012 and 2014, the founders realised that there has been a actual need for medical networking. According to Nipun, there had been a number of systems working on improving lives of sufferers, however very few had been running on making the practice of doctors extra green.
During an interplay with Inc42, Curofy co-founder Nipun Goyal stated, “Doctors use Facebook and WhatsApp organizations to discuss cases and community issues, but that’s notably unorganised. The outlook isn't always professional and there may be vast facts loss.”
“More importantly, the aspect of networking and reputation management is misplaced because the whole physician network will in no way be energetic on one FB organization or one WhatsApp group. Additionally, they're spammed on those structures,” he went on to kingdom.
Eager to faucet into this rather untouched opportunity, they quickly left their jobs and began Curofy. The group initially constructed a internet site and ran a pilot, only to recognize that cellular become the way to go.
“It helped us in further understanding their needs and behavior, which went into our cell app layout and improvement. We killed our website and have become a cell-most effective organization,” Nipun averred.
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In January 2015, they commenced the alpha phase of the app to acquire consumer remarks and launched at the Play Store in February of the identical yr and later introduced the iOS app.
Curofy, at the surface, is a social networking platform for docs, however, as we peel the layers, it emerges as a comprehensive platform for each health practitioner’s need to hold himself/herself up to date with the trendy trends inside the clinical world, claims Goyal.
In reality, Curofy encourages peer-to-peer collaboration in learning and fixing instances to help docs preserve abreast of the latest advancements inside the clinical realm. To that end, the app has a content sharing module through which docs can share cases, trending information and discussion subjects with different medical doctors from their distinctiveness, hospital, town and more.
An Overview Of Curofy’s Many Offerings
Owned via 911 India Healthcare, Curofy’s on line scientific listing creates profiles of medical doctors based on the records provided with the aid of them. Doctors offer their primary information to turn out to be part of the top class community, publish verification.
Additionally, scientific professionals can provide referrals, percentage cases, call different doctors with out surely getting access to each different’s numbers and feature get right of entry to to the most recent, speciality-sensible traits taking vicinity within the fields of medication, surgery and dentistry, as a consequence providing a platform for collaborative gaining knowledge of.
Besides providing a platform for discussions, Curofy gives get admission to to diverse provider providers who fulfill special needs of docs like loans, clinical devices, jobs, insurance, medical selection guide gear and so on.
While its middle product is the Discussion Platform, among its different offerings is Library, which affords understanding aggregated from numerous resources and companions to help medical doctors in staying updated of their exercise. This consists of clinical choice guide gear, pointers, journals, quizzes etc.
Other than that, there may be Genie, a carrier that connects medical doctors with service vendors who fulfill one-of-a-kind desires of doctors like getting unsecured loans, buying medical gadgets, locating jobs or personnel, insuring their practice and taking medico-felony advice. Lastly, through the Profile function, Doctors can spotlight their profile on Curofy, which permits discovery to each patients and docs.
Based on this profile, a physician can even get affected person referrals from other doctors on Curofy.
Embracing Technology To Create A Well Knit Ecosystem For Doctors
Curofy App
With the arena status on the brink of the fourth business revolution, generation has become an crucial part of all successful agencies. And it’s no specific, inside the case of Curofy. By leveraging the power of intelligent algorithm, the startup has managed to hold its platform centered and junk mail-loose, at the same time as additionally organising and streamlining the conversations among doctors.
So, what are a number of the real-global use instances of the Curofy platform?
Imagine a small city physician discovering an unusual case and having doubts regarding the precise cause of the issues. He posts this situation on the app and inside some hours, gets opinions from qualified docs throughout the u . S . A ..
The health practitioner can now take into account those extraordinary lines of diagnosis or refer the affected person to the proper health practitioner based on the critiques.
Elaborating on every other realistic utility of the technology, Goyal said, “A physician needs a loan for commencing a new hospital. He posts his requirement on Curofy, that is automatically sent to the most applicable economic partner of Curofy. The partner at once procedures the doctor and affords an unsecured mortgage inside 48 hours.”
Ushering In Change In The Indian Healthcare System
Although Curofy’s client base accommodates medical doctors only, the platform has been indirectly striving to make the u . S . A .’s healthcare system greater organised, with the aid of casting off inefficiencies and streamlining the diagnosis and treatment technique.
With Curofy, doctors now have an atmosphere in which they can quickly discuss the case with the proper set of medical doctors inside the network and help the affected person in getting a quicker remedy. Additionally, the platform affords the doctors with a assist system that allows them to associate with diverse stakeholders in the industry.
Talking approximately the impact that Curofy has had at the u . S .’s clinical zone, Nipun in addition said, “The largest outcome of this platform is the non-stop intelligence this is been built by cataloguing these interactions and cases. With subsequent-gen equipment like device studying and artificial intelligence at disposal, the possibilities can simplest be termed as modern.”
On the medical industry facet, even in nowadays’s virtual international, diverse healthcare stakeholders nonetheless rely on inefficient offline channels to create attention about their innovations and services with the provider community. A exceptionally engaged platform of medical doctors solves this problem as nicely.
As claimed through the founders, “Curofy is changing behaviour of medical doctors, making them undertake this closed social media. This enables a digital channel of conversation among docs and the enterprise.”
Numbers Don’t Lie: A Look At Curofy’s Current Statistics
While the purpose to do correct became what drove the founders to start Curofy in the first place, its persevered achievement has been the end result of cautious strategising and the crew’s steely-eyed attention on developing a sustainable commercial enterprise. The boom, Nipun believes, has been largely natural, mainly thru word of mouth.
Currently, the scientific networking app boasts more than 220K registered clients/customers on its platform, together with extremely good-experts from top rate hospitals like Medanta, Apollo, Max and Saket City, among others. So a ways, it has facilitated over 250K+ case discussions between docs, with the present day every day common being 500.
As per the filings with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA), Curofy’s total revenue in 2016-17 stood at $162.1K (INR 1.05 Cr), which included $34.890.1 (INR 22.6 Lakh) as earnings from other assets. During the said period, the agency suggested losses of round $988.2K (INR 6.4 Cr). This changed into especially because of the boom in prices to $1.14 Mn (INR 7.4 Cr).
While Curofy’s present day priority is a higher engagement of medical doctors over revenue, it claimed to have began making sales in January 2017 or even reached near breaking even through end of ultimate 12 months.
On the road in advance, Goyal averred, “As we delve deep, seamless conversation is just device for a broader goal. The intention now is to preserve every doctor up to date with modern day in the medical international, to inculcate a spirit of collaboration amongst them and most importantly to construct an less costly healthcare machine this is geography agnostic. At gift, Curofy’s precedence is the engagement of docs over revenue at the same time as doing these tie-ups.”
Nipun Goyal On Surviving The Initial Challenges And The Road Ahead
Curofy
Like most startups, gaining tractions at some stage in the initial days was a prime hurdle for Curofy. According to its co-founders, the largest mission become to persuade doctors to use the platform after which force traffic from WhatsApp to the networking app.
Goyal explained, “We centered on retaining the medical doctors at the app with the aid of giving them an smooth-to-use product with excessive software. Providing them a spam loose platform with very excessive relevance for every consumer became the key.”
“The word started spreading amongst the docs and the community began growing unexpectedly. From 4 to five docs a day, more than one thousand medical doctors started out joining the app in a unmarried day,” Nipun brought.
In a bid to achieve such an ambitious feat, Curofy is currently focussed on getting a foothold of the fundamental stakeholders in the united states of america. Utilising the funding it has raised to this point, the organisation will similarly boom and improve the nice and quantity of the instances for its case repository.
Apart from that, Curofy is also operating with numerous healthcare industry stakeholders to disrupt the manner they speak with doctors, thereby assisting them to make their exercise more green. As claimed by means of Nipun, the clinical networking employer has already collaborated with many industry companions to help them disseminate new innovations to docs through the platform.
Along similar lines, a number of healthcare giants have joined fingers with Curofy to digitise numerous components of their organizations. The scientific networking startup is likewise stated to be integrating with diverse structures and provider companies, who will satisfy exceptional desires of docs like getting them loans, medical devices, jobs, insurance, medical choice assist and so on.
For instance, these days, it introduced an alliance with Bajaj Finserv to presents smooth get entry to to unsecured loans and monetary help on their app.
This strategic collaboration, according to the founders, is the outcome of a three-month-lengthy pilot between and the NBFC, as a part of which extra than a thousand docs have already acquired economic useful resource in putting in place their clinics, starting their exercise, expanding their enterprise growth, buying clinical devices and shopping for actual property.
Shedding mild at the business enterprise’s destiny plans, Nipun stated, “Facebook has tested to us that the entire advertising and marketing function of the sector can be constrained within the nation-states of a few buttons Curofy is taking the Facebook approach of buttoning various advertising functions.”
Ultimately, the healthtech organisation is eager on expanding its geographical attain in growing markets past India. To that quit, it has already run pilots in Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Africa.
Editor’s Note
According to an IBEF document, the general Indian healthcare market is envisioned at $one hundred Bn. It is expected to touch $280 Bn by way of 2020, growing at a CAGR of twenty-two.Nine%. Globally, the healthtech region attracted over $10 Bn funding with the market moving in the direction of consolidations, as according to an August 2017 CB insights report.
In India by myself, healthtech startups raised over $338 Mn funding throughout 111 deals in 2017, in line with Inc42 DataLabs’ Indian Tech Startup Funding Report 2017. Some of the most important fundings in this area have been received by using on-line pharmacy startups consisting of Netmeds, which secured $14 Mn investment in a spherical led via Cambodian funding maintaining company Tanncam and Sistema Asia Fund in October 2017.
Despite the elevated availability of funding and the increase inside the wide variety of healthtech startups, the u . S .’s healthcare quarter is still crippled with inefficiencies, lack of right infrastructure, scarcity of medical doctors and different clinical professionals, among others.
While the Union Budget 2018 has made provisions to raise health care spending by means of 11% to $8.2 Bn as a manner of assembly vital fitness infrastructure gaps, at it stands currently, the troubles in the Indian healthcare device are nevertheless jarringly real.
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This is where startups like Curofy are available in. Although not immediately focussed on sufferers, the platform is supporting create a strong infrastructure for medical doctors to talk and collaborate with one another, which in flip makes the diagnosis and treatment system greater green.
Other startups running along similar strains encompass Docplexus, Daily Rounds, Practo, Health Feed and PlexusMD. Globally, there are agencies like Sermo and Doximity which might be offering physicians a platform to connect with every other.
Despite the emergence of a number of competitors, Nipun believes that Curofy is basically specific in terms of the technique taken to remedy the equal problem. He instructed Inc42, “Curofy’s engagement stages are at the least 10 instances extra than the satisfactory of them. To be honest, engagement is the important thing metric for determining fulfillment and failure in this segment. Curofy has already demonstrated engagement, wherein others are nevertheless struggling to locate it.”
Amid a populace of over 1.3 Bn, the 1: 1,seven hundred doctor to affected person ratio in India is extremely negative in contrast to the prescribed ratio of one:four hundred with the aid of WHO. While this immediately influences the first-class and accessibility of healthcare, the decrease medical doctor to affected person ratio additionally makes it greater hard for startups like Curofy to benefit a solid footing in an already limited marketplace.
Add to that is the reality that extra ninety healthtech startups had been released in India in 2017 by myself. Although the path is evidently fraught with demanding situations, how Curofy makes a decision to navigate them will be its achievement tale!
