Posted by Mumbai: B2B healthcare financing startup HealthCRED, has raised $1.2 million in a seed funding round. The round was led by Antler India, TRTL VC, DeVC, iSeedVC and Angel List India.
The round also saw participation from prominent angel investors including Dr. Subho Ray (President, IAMAI), Nitin Gupta (CEO, Uni Cards), Amit Lakhotia (CEO, ParkPlus) and founders of InsuranceDekho and SEA-based Docquity.
The capital infusion will be strategically utilised to enhance customer relationships and expand operations to the southern and western parts of the country. It will also be channelised to hire fresh talents and develop state-of-the-art B2B loan onboarding and loan management systems, creating an end-to-end digitised B2B healthcare lending framework.
Founded in 2022 by Shrey Jain and Arpit Jangir, HealthCRED is poised to become India’s first healthcare-focused Small Finance Bank (SFB). It provides swift, comprehensive, and adaptable financing solutions tailored for the healthcare sector.
HealthCRED’s collaborative approach involves partnering with hospitals, specialised healthcare service providers (HSPs across nephrology, oncology, and diagnostics), insurers, and pharmaceutical and consumable supply chain partners to deliver intelligent and efficient financing solutions.
“With the rapid penetration of health insurance in the post-COVID scenario, there has been an increased working capital management stress for Hospitals and HSPs. The key factor is the delay associated with the realisation of insurance receivables,” said Shrey Jain, Co-Founder and CEO of HealthCRED.
“We aim to work towards stabilising their cash flow cycles, through early financing of these delayed receivables. This would help further ensure quality delivery of patient care, thereby enabling improved alignment with SDG Target 3.8 and Universal Healthcare Coverage (UHC),” added Jain.
Nitin Sharma, Partner at Antler India said, “
The healthcare ecosystem faces a significant working capital gap, particularly impacting small to mid-sized hospitals with limited capital access and claims management capabilities. This gap is expected to widen with increasing health insurance penetration and delayed insurer payments, according to Nitin Sharma, Partner – Antler India.
“Banks and NBFCs typically focus on large hospital infrastructural loans, leaving small hospitals underserved. HealthCRED aims to address this by offering working capital finance against cashless insurance receivables., targeting a multi-billion dollar gap. We are thrilled to back Shrey, Arpit, and the HealthCRED team to become a major healthcare lender, addressing various financing needs over time,” said Sharma.
HealthCRED is addressing a burgeoning working capital gap in hospitals and the healthcare supply chain, targeting the needs of India’s rapidly growing $300 billion-plus healthcare industry. The B2B healthcare financing startup aims to disburse over $1 billion over the next 5 years through digital means, basis alternate data-driven underwriting.