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Shashank ND gets candid in an interview with e27 on the sidelines of Practo’s US$55 million Series D funding

Practo is no longer an unfamiliar brand in India. Although the Bangalore-headquartered firm has been frugal in its marketing spend, it has managed to secure quite a good number of users — patients and doctors — on its healthcare platform.

It has been very conservative when it comes to cash burn. Unlike its contemporaries like Flipkart, Practo does not believe in burning massive amounts of money in marketing just to gain a few customer dollars in return. And this conservative approach has not obstructed it from scaling heights — not just in India, but markets like Indonesia, Singapore, the Philippines, Malaysia, and the Middle East.

Practo, which has acquired five startups over the eight years of its existence, recently raised US$55 million Series D funding led by Tencent Holdings. This took the firm’s total funding so far to over US$170 million, that also included a US$90 million in Series C in February last year.

Also Read: Practo acquires Bangalore-based healthcare analytics startup Enlightiks

e27 sat with Practo’s Co-founder and CEO Shashank ND to know more about the startup’s success mantra.

Here are the edited excerpts:

You started way back in 2008 when the startup ecosystem was in the nascent stage in India. How did you mange to overcome challenges and frustrations?

Challenges are part and parcel of the startup life, and you need to face them with mettle. I run a lot, exercise a lot, and work out at gym regularly. I also play various sports such as Squash. I started doing many of these things to manage extra work loads.

When I feel frustrated, I go to gym and unleash my frustrations on the equipment out there (laughing).

If you look at the newgen startups, almost everyone has started adding AI capabilities to their product. How do you view this trend?

As you rightly said, everyone has started using Artificial Intelligence these days. This way, startups are able to give an enhanced consumer experience and gather a lot of user data. I believe that every product and every app needs to add AI and deep learning capabilities. There is a hug opportunity to use data that can help doctors take better decisions, improve quality of outcomes, etc.

We have not adopted any AI capabilities yet. We are almost there, and you will see some good developments on this front in the coming months.

You are now present in some Southeast Asian markets. How do you compare these markets with India?

We started looking at Southeast Asian markets one to two years back. Now, we are present in Indonesia, Singapore and the Philippines. We target markets that are similar to India. In all these countries, healthcare is largely private, unlike China where healthcare is mainly run by the government. Insurance penetration is slightly at the lower end. If you take Indonesia, it has a large population and product adoptions are very similar to India. In Indonesia and Philippines, the need for technology is much higher. Singapore’s healthcare market is also largely private-run.

You are also present in Brazil. What does it offer? Also, how do you overcome the language barrier in foreign countries?

We have an ambition to go to as many countries as possible. We chose Brazil because even though its economy is in the doldrums, the healthcare sector is growing fast. Brazil’s healthcare market is twice as bigger than that of India. Moreover, it has all the characteristics of India. We are happy to see the initial results.

All our products are available in local languages.

If you look at India, there is still more than enough headroom to grow. Then why should you look at foreign markets for scale?

The fact is that it very hard to deeply penetrate in India. India is a vast country with hundreds of languages and cultures. That said, or the other company should look to penetrate the rural India.

Also Read: Practo enables Twitter users to get their healthcare queries answered in real time

I would explore both options if presented with massive opportunities. But right now I see more opportunities in foreign countries, because there is a lack of availability of similar products in these markets. For instance, Indonesia has higher per capita than India, and has higher disposable income. Adoption of tables are much higher than in markets like the Philippines.

Why don’t you look at Europe, which has a higher smartphone and internet penetration than Asia?

We’re focussing largely on developing economies. You are right that even in Europe, there are some developing economies that we can target. Our first criterion for expansion to any market is it needs to be a developing economy. Second factor is the privatisation of healthcare. The third criterion is that we are looking at clusters and regions.

We are present in Southeast Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. These are the regions we are currently focussing on. Our initial plan is to consolidate in these markets. Having said that, if we are presented with a good opportunity, we will look at Europe. It is just a matter of time.

In India, very few companies have managed to crack the rural market. What is your strategy to leverage on this opportunity?

In fact, we did multiple different attempts to penetrate into the rural markets. We did word of mouth marketing, etc. People in the hinterland India have access to mobile phone and internet, etc. Of course, we have a lot of room to grow, even though language is a huge barrier. Anyway, eventually it will happen. Currently, we have lot of headrooms to grow in the top 10 cities we are focussing now.

You have investors from Belgium, Japan, China, and the US. Were all these inbound investors?

We love what we do. We try pick up problems faced by doctors and patients and are committed to solve them. We have little time to go out in the market seeking funding. All these investments are inbound. I have not gone to many of the locations that you mentioned here. As long as you solve a large problem and deliver values, you will get funding.

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