He says he stumbled into the healthcare space in 1998, in the middle of some consulting work that he was doing. But that is where he has been since then, having co-founded a venture that provides offshore healthcare services with centres in India and the Philippines, after stints with start-ups and large companies in the US.

For this venture, Omega Healthcare Management Services, Gopi Natarajan, co-founder and CEO, should thank his business broker in the US, who convinced him to meet another person of Indian origin, who too had similar ideas, and who is a co-founder.

A science graduate from the University of Madras, Gopi worked in a relative’s data centre in Chennai for a couple of years, teaching himself computer programming. In the early 1980s, he moved to the US. He landed a job in a company run by a person of Hungarian origin, to do some programming work. He had to work long hours, but he jumped at it because that was the break he needed. It was while doing some consulting work that he also got into the technology side of the healthcare sector.

Technology side Here, Gopi worked on developing systems for doctors and hospitals, classified as the providers, and insurance companies, who are known as the payers. It was in 1993 that Gopi and a few of his friends decided to start a venture that would provide solutions for healthcare providers. The product they developed would manage doctors’ offices and get insurance claims out. “It (the venture) was bootstrapped from our savings. Five of us pooled in money and started the company,” says Gopi.

Things were going well, but three years into the venture, the entrepreneurs found themselves strapped for cash. This was the pre-Internet days, recalls Gopi, because of which funding was hard to come by.

“We ran out of money and ended up doing a fire sale to a big pharmaceutical company.” Gopi joined IT giant EDS, which was looking for a healthcare strategy person. But, before long he was back in another healthcare start-up, this time in the Silicon Valley, which merged with another start-up. The combined entity acquired a number of companies and grew. This again proved to be a problem as integration became an issue. Gopi says, “a whole bunch of us were unhappy. When we saw that the company was headed in a different direction, a lot of us left.” There was another opportunity for him to go back to EDS, but he felt he was done with “all the corporate stuff”.

“I came from the start-up mentality, where we could visualise something, we could do it. There was no need to go through committees of approval and all that stuff.” Gopi says he felt that he should do something on his own. This is when the business broker that Gopi was in touch suggested that he meet Anurag Mehta, his current partner. Both Gopi and Anurag baulked at the idea, but then decided to meet. What was supposed to be a brief meeting, stretched for hours and at the end of it, they had decided to get together to start a venture that will do work for American clients, but with a strong India focus.

Their first venture had to be sold shortly after it started as one of the persons who had funded it, wanted to take his money out.

Omega Healthcare, their second venture, decided to be in the wholesale segment. That is, doing work for those companies that dealt with hospitals and doctors. It specialises in medical billing, coding, accounts receivable management and other healthcare-related services.

They tied up with the Manipal group, which had a call centre space in Bengaluru. This helped them shave off 6-8 months work, in setting up the required infrastructure. The venture took off in January 2004 and the business plan was that they should break even in 18 months. “We broke even in month 20. We missed it by two months, but it was pretty close,” says Gopi.

Even as the business grew, Gopi recalls there was a lot of bickering going in with the joint venture partners, who wanted to sell the business and get out. Gopi and Anurag bought out their stake through a one-year bridge loan from a company.

Challenging time The problem was they had to repay the loan within a specified time, as, otherwise, the loan would get converted into equity. Their plan was to triple the company in that period so that they would be able to attract private equity money, pay off the loan and retain substantial ownership of their venture. Gopi recalls it was a harrowing time for them. By 2006-end, just a fortnight before the deadline, they raised private equity money from Healthedge Investment Partners and paid off the loan.

Omega has offices in Chennai and Tiruchi, in Tamil Nadu, and in Bengaluru, and in the Philippines. It has 6,700 employees and with about 2,300 of those in Tiruchi.

It aims to have about 13,000 employees in the next three-four years, which Gopi believes is possible. “I am having a lot of fun,” says 54-year-old Gopi.

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