Enthused by a recent round of angel funding, PlanMyMedicalTrip.com, a platform offering global patients access to affordable specialised medical care in India and Turkey, plans to expand its base to Dubai and Thailand by the end of 2016.
It also targets to increase revenue from a modest Rs 5 crore in 2015-16 to Rs 800 crore, or 15 per cent of the $8-billion medical tourism market in the country by 2020.
The Pune-based portal, an interesting convergence of the healthcare experience of a doctor couple and their software engineer son’s e-commerce and travel business, got Rs 1.25-crore funding this month from three young angel investors, Bhanu Vikram Parsotam, Rohan Desai, and Paras Patel.
The venture, which was started in 2012 with an investment of Rs 80 lakh, intends to use this fresh capital infusion to increase its catalyst network globally and improve their customer’s digital experience, Anurav Rane, Founder-CEO, told BusinessLine.
“In our new markets of Dubai and Thailand, we are in the process of tying up with nearly 1,000 pre-identified doctors and hospitals. Our business model is based on variable charges. Currently, we charge from the doctor or hospital on average 20-35 per cent of the medical bill for treatment.”
The portal also plans to expand to Brazil, Egypt and Germany.
With tie-ups with over 1,800 doctors and hospitals in India and Turkey, the doctor-patient interface portal offers a range of treatments, including in the ayurvedic and yoga streams, besides allopathy and organ transplantation. So far it claims to have served 3,000 patients.
The firm, with its outreach to Dubai and Thailand, hopes to attract patients from Africa, West Asia and South-East Asia as it offers a one-stop destination to them to compare doctors and hospitals, their packages, reviews, and end-to-end guidance on treatment, travel and stay.
Originally launched in 2007 under the brand name of Best Medical Centers, it scaled up and metamorphosed into PlanMyMedicalTrip.com five years later, which now attracts both online and offline patients, Rane said.
“Our patient-friendly portal also wishes to facilitate patients’ stay in exotic destinations to aid in their recovery process and take the sting out of long treatments.”
Rane said the portal not only facilitates medical services, it also hand-holds the patient and the caregiver through the process of shifting to a new city for treatment, by helping them procure medical visas, hotel bookings, transfers, and air ambulance services.
Anurav’s father, Dr Rajeev M Rane, Co-Founder and COO, after three decades of running a maternity hospital, became a travel consultant and founded Dziner Holidays in 2000. He then launched Best Medical Centers and subsequently, together with his son, co-founded PlanMyMedicalTrip.com. An IT engineer, Anurav became a partner at Dziner Holidays and a curator for theme-based travel holidays in India and abroad for a decade, before striking out on his own.