K. Ganesh is a busy man. The serial entrepreneur that he is, Ganesh and his wife Meena, are now into their fifth venture – a home healthcare services company that makes extensive use of technology – that has just raised its first round of funding.

Besides, the husband-and-wife duo has GrowthStory, funded by them, that invests in and incubates start-ups and helps them raise funds and grow.

“The latest thing we are working on is a new home healthcare venture,” he says, during a chat recently at the Leela Palace, overlooking the Adayar estuary in Chennai.

The idea, says Ganesh, who has just turned 52, is that 70 per cent of visits to a hospital is not required and can be done at home. In July, they bought Portea Medical, which was started by Zachary Jones and Karan Aneja with the idea of bringing US standards of home healthcare to India.

B2B venture Portea Medical, originally started as a B2B venture, had done pilots with some large hospitals and pharmaceutical companies, when Ganesh and Meena bought it and changed its business model. “The compelling statistics is that India has got a large ageing population. The diseases are getting discovered earlier than before. Therefore, the need for disease management at an earlier age is something we need to address,” says Ganesh.

Portea aims to bring healthcare to individual homes at a price that is affordable, according to him. Its services are available in Bangalore, Delhi, Chennai and Mumbai. The company has doctors, nurses, physiotherapists on its rolls. It owns equipment and, as Ganesh says, has technology that binds all these together. For instance, he explains, when you are not at home and your child has fallen down, we will send a person home and give first aid. Once you are back home, you can decide if more attention is required or not.

Key areas According to Ganesh, Portea will concentrate on four broad areas – chronic diseases, geriatric care, neo-natal and post-operative care. It will send technicians for drawing blood samples for routine tests. All Portea’s technicians and staff will carry smartphones when they make home visits. All the protocols and processes are in the smartphone. The healthcare worker is GPS-tagged. “We know when he has visited. He cannot leave the home unless all those tests are done,” says Ganesh.

In case, some test has not been done, the worker will get an SMS/email alert. The patient’s medical records are available in the control centre in Bangalore and right from the dosage of medicine that has to be required is monitored centrally.

Portea has an expert doctor at the control centre and if the patient so wishes, he or she can have a tele-conference with the doctor using the healthcare worker’s smartphone.

Ganesh says he has extended the online education model that he followed in his previous venture TutorVista, which he sold to Pearson, to Portea. The extensive use of technology, according to Ganesh, makes it easier to scale up and also ensures that the system is foolproof.

Last month, Portea did 1,200 home visits out of 2,000 calls. When the staff think that they are not equipped to handle a complaint, they ask the caller to visit a hospital. Portea does not intend to replace either a specialist or be a full-fledged healthcare provider at your doorstep. Its business plan is to make it easier for you to get routine tests done at home, thus avoiding the hassle of visiting either a doctor or a hospital. According to Ganesh, Portea gives its customers the choice of either paying per visit or subscribing to packages.

Ganesh and Meena have invested Rs 1 crore in the venture. It has raised Rs 48 crore from venture capital firms Accel Partners and Ventureast. The money will be used to grow, both organically and through acquisitions, to six more cities. Ganesh is the Chairman of Portea responsible for strategy, fund-raising and M&A, while Meena is the CEO and Managing Director.

Other venture The other venture that Ganesh and Meena have is an entrepreneurship platform called GrowthStory, which the two have funded. “What we are doing with GrowthStory is identifying the next growth areas and bringing together the founders, promoters, funding them, writing a business plan and strategy, kick-starting the business and taking it to Series A (first stage of institutional funding) very quickly,” says Ganesh.

GrowthStory invests anything from Rs 5 lakh to Rs 2 crore in the start-ups. “We are not angel investors. We are co-promoters or co-founders. When we raise money from VCs, they expect us like a promoter to sign all the covenants and we exit only after the VC has exited,” explains Ganesh.

He is clear that GrowthStory will only invest in ventures in consumer Internet and e-commerce companies and especially those in which they can add value. GrowthStory’s portfolio includes MustSeeIndia (travel package and content), BigBasket (online grocery), BookAdda (academic focussed online books), OnlinePrasad (online religion and spirituality), Delyver (neighbourhood services delivery) and Bluestone (jewellery). Some of these companies have raised their first round of funding.

Ganesh explains that all these companies have a common thread of using technology to disrupt a current situation or a problem. There is no point, he says, in starting a venture where the only differentiator will be execution. “Trying to make a success out of a business model on executing better is extremely difficult. I am executing better than somebody else, but I will not be able to change the equation. The real business opportunity lies where I can disrupt,” he says and adds, “and how do I disrupt, by using technology.” He gives the example of BigBasket. It is meant to change the way people shop for groceries and vegetables. Nearly 80 per cent of shopping is not instant and hence can be done on the Internet, where the stuff will be delivered at home.

Use of technology Likewise, OnlinePrasad, which enables people to offer their prayers to temples of their choice on any day they choose and in turn get the temple’s Prasad delivered at their doorsteps.

For all the extensive use of technology, Ganesh is a great believer in the online, offline combination. Both BigBasket and Portea are Internet companies. But they do have an offline component. BigBasket has a warehouse where it stocks its groceries and vans to deliver the goods. Likewise with Portea, which has doctors and para-medical staff visiting homes.

“This online, offline combination is going to be big in India because of our infrastructure problems.”

Ganesh’s business themes now: Use technology, disrupt a model, India consumption story. “We see education and healthcare as big opportunities. There are a lot more ideas like this,” he adds.

(Please send feedback, comments or suggestions to >emergingentrepreneurs@thehindu.co.in )

>ramakrishnan.n@thehindu.co.in

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