Practo Announces $55-Million Series D Round Led by Tencent; Says It Will Launch Health Insurance in 2017

On Tuesday, doctor discovery and practice management company Practo announced its Series D funding, raising $55 million (approximately Rs. 374 crore) in a round led by Tencent, with three new investors, Thrive, Ru-net, and Recruit Strategic Partners. The company will be using these funds to fuel further growth in India, exploring new territories outside the country (Practo is also active in Brazil, Singapore, and the Philippines), and launching a new service - health insurance. Practo founder and CEO Shashank ND says that the company does not mean to become a provider of health insurance, merely a facilitator.

Shashank also confirmed that Practo's existing investors continued to invest in the Series D round, though he did not give a breakup of the $55 million. This investment brings the total raised by Practo up to $179 million.

Talking about 2016, Shashank revealed that Practo saw over 45 million patients, crossed 100,000 doctors, and saw 5 million medical records shared by doctors to patients. With the funds, it will continue to focus on growth rather than revenue, but Shashank said that the company is adding more monetisation options.

"Today the bulk of our revenue still comes from hospitals, diagnostic centres and so on, who advertise on the customer facing platform, or pay for our practice management tools," said Shashank. "But we have been adding more features that consumers can pay for as well."

"For example, we have Practo Consult, which is free to use, but if you want an immediate answer, you can choose to pay for a priority answer," he adds. "Then we have medicine delivery, which obviously you pay for the goods you buy. And you can now choose prepaid appointments to make the doctor visit even more seamless."

That said, 2016 was also a big year for Practo, Shashank said, as it added most of the leading healthcare providers, including Max Healthcare, Narayana Hrudayalaya, Manipal Hospitals, and more, seeing 60 percent growth in enterprise over the previous year.

Shashank did not confirm when the new health insurance business would launch, but hinted that it could be in the next few months. He also suggested that Practo's next international market could be Dubai, but said nothing final has been decided on that front yet.