‘Senior care’ in focus for Hyderabad based start-up Anvayaa

Staying far away from home town and wondering how your parents are taking care of their daily needs? Wondering how they can make it to that important family get-together or watch a movie in the theatre?

Prashanth Reddy, a single child, realised quickly how difficult it was to find quick help for parents whenever he stayed abroad on official work.

“You can fall back on your friends and relatives in times of emergencies but you will soon realise it is not always possible to seek their help for different reasons. You can’t expect them to attend to small needs,” he says.

He conducted a survey by interviewing 400 families to understand the pain points in the daily life of an elderly couple in urban areas. “We found there is a huge need for help in a variety of areas. Right from paying utility bills, fetching groceries, accompanying them to parties, theatres and taking and attending to hospital appointments,” Prashanth told BusinessLine .

He founded Anvayaa in 2016 with a view to provide ‘senior care’, covering the whole gamut of their daily life. “We built a technology platform that offers one-stop-shop senior care solution, providing healthcare assistance, emergency care, socialisation assistance, daily needs assistance, payment management and any other services that they might require,” said Prashanth Reddy, Founder-Director of Anvyaa Kin Care Private Limited.

Prashanth headed APOnline, a TCS company, and held top roles in the IT major.

‘Untapped demand’

He said the untapped demand for senior care service is quite huge. “There is an estimated 30 million non-resident Indians (NRI) and high-networth individual (HNI) families in the country. Out of this, about 1.6 million senior citizens are either living alone or with spouses in Metros,” he said.

In order to provide all the services that the senior citizens require, the start-up tied up with 120 different partners, covering a range of services that include healthcare, hospitality, pharma players, service providers, plumbers and lawyers.

“Our trained Care Managers would attend to their needs. They will take doctor appointments, accompany them to the visits, attend to medical emergencies. We will help them in shifting houses, finding a plumber,” he said.

The start-up charges $400-$1,500 a family of two people, offering different packages.

After testing and consolidating the model in Hyderabad, Anvayaa is planning to expand its services to other Metros. “We so far has been a boot-strapped company. We would like to raise ₹5-10 crore for the phase-II. We are coming out with an IoT (Internet of Things) and Artificial Intelligence-based wearable devices with a panic button,” Prashanth says.

“We are planning an exclusive e-commerce site that sells products and services exclusively for senior citizens,” he says.

With a customer base of 200 families in Hyderabad, the start-up has now set its eyes on Bengaluru, Pune and Mumbai markets.

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