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Home healthcare firm Portea Medical is expanding its portfolio by seeking to bring healthcare and proactive medical treatment for India’s growing population of elderly persons to their doorsteps through smart-phones and wearable devices.
For this new offering, Portea is leveraging the mobile health platform of Qualcomm Life Sciences, part of the San Diego-based venture capital firm Qualcomm Ventures, which made a strategic investment in the Bangalore-based company late last month.
This was the second round of fund raising by the one-year old Portea, which raised ₹48 crore in December from Accel Partners and Venture East.
“We have launched our new product, Geriatric Package, last month. We are investing $2 million to develop the technology platform with expertise from Qualcomm,” K Ganesh, Co-founder and Chairman of Portea, said.
As part of the new service, Portea will provide wearable medical devices such as those to measure blood pressure and blood sugar levels to those who need constant health monitoring.
The data will then be transferred by its executives to its central portal and then directed to its panel of doctors, who will provide the treatment through the technology platform.
“The treatment and results will also be simultaneously e-mailed to the wards of the elderly living abroad or in different cities,” he told BusinessLine.
India’s population of the elderly (above 60 years of age) is expected to grow from the current 144 million to 175 million by 2025.
This is Ganesh’s fifth venture, having founded four green field ventures earlier. His last venture, TutorVista, was acquired by US- and UK-listed education leader Pearson for $ 213 million.
Prior to this, he founded data analytics BPO form Marketics, which was subsequently acquired by NYSE-listed ICICI and is now publicly listed in India as First Source Solutions.
The Indian home healthcare market is estimated at between $ 2 and $ 4 billion.
Portea is investing $20 million in expanding from the current 18 cities to 50 cities in the next 18 months.
It will also be increasing its headcount from 1,000 to 8,000 to provide its portfolio of home healthcare services.
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