Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
AI-Powered Village Clinics: Inside CureBay's Plan to Serve a Billion Patients
0 Plays2 seconds ago
In this episode, we uncover how Priyadarshi Mohapatra turned CureBay into one of India's most ambitious rural healthtech ventures, raising $37M and proving that Bharat will pay for quality care.
Priyadarshi Mohapatra has spent 25 years building businesses that others said couldn't be built. From co-creating the Tanishq brand's iconic purity positioning to scaling Microsoft's consumer division and leading Google Cloud's India enterprise push, he has always found opportunity where others saw obstacles.
Then COVID hit, and a broken Skype teleconsultation attempt for his wife ignited an idea that would become CureBay, a hybrid phygital platform delivering last-mile primary healthcare to rural India through a network of 200 AI-powered eClinics across Odisha, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand.
In a candid, wide-ranging conversation with host Akshay Datt, Priyadarshi unpacks the structural failures of India's rural healthcare system, the unit economics of the Kavach membership program, the Swasthya Mitra distribution model and why he believes 100 CureBays are needed to truly solve this problem. This episode is essential listening for anyone tracking India's $45 billion rural health market, the future of AI in healthcare, and the next wave of impact-driven startups reshaping Bharat.
What you'll learn in this episode:
👉Why India's rural healthcare crisis is not a funding problem but a trust and access problem, and how CureBay's hybrid eClinic model solves both at once
👉How the Kavach membership program, priced at just Rs 499 per year, is built like an insurance product and is already seeing 60% renewal rates
👉The real reason doctors refuse to serve rural India, and why no policy mandate has been able to fix the structural economics behind it
👉How CureBay is training AI models on real patient data from 200 clinics to build diagnostics tools that outperform anything trained on synthetic data
👉Why Priyadarshi believes partnering with government, not competing with it, is the only way to build healthcare at scale in India
👉The "nodal point" strategy that replaced his early mistake of going too deep into single villages, and how speed of execution became his sharpest competitive weapon
If this episode gave you a new lens on India's rural health opportunity, subscribe to Founder Thesis so you never miss a conversation like this one. And follow host Akshay Datt on LinkedIn and X for daily insights on India's most ambitious founders and the startups they are building.
Chapters:
00:00 - Why Rural India's Healthcare System Is Broken
08:20 - The Doctor Shortage Nobody Can Fix
14:00 - How CureBay's eClinic Model Actually Works
24:30 - Kavach, The Rs 499 Plan Rewriting Rural Health Insurance
37:45 - Funding CureBay, The $37M Journey
43:00 - From Tanishq to Google to Village Clinics
54:00 - AI and Data, CureBay's Secret Long Game
1:03:00 - Why India Needs 100 CureBays
#PriyadarshiMohapatra #CureBay #RuralHealthcareIndia #HealthtechIndia #IndiaStartups #FounderThesis #AkshayDatt #PhygitalHealthcare #RuralBharat #AyushmanBharat #AIinHealthcare #ImpactInvesting #IndiaHealthtech #StartupFunding #SeriesBFunding #SwasthyaMitra #KavachMembership #TeleconsultationIndia #LastMileHealthcare #BharatStartups #HealthtechDisruption #RuralIndiaHealthcare #IndiaHealthcareMarket #StartupIndia #ImpactStartupsIndia
Disclaimer: The views expressed are those of the speaker, not necessarily the channel
Recommended
Transcript
Antibiotic Misuse in Rural India
00:00:00
Speaker
9 out of 10 times the medicine handed over is actually an antibiotic. The patient doesn't know about it, they don't have a prescription. As a result, rural India is dangerously becoming antibiotic resistant. Somebody had to do something about it. There is a lot of upfront investment to become a doctor. You need to recover that investment by working where the money is and the money is in urban areas. The only difference is here
Curebay's Innovative Healthcare Solutions
00:00:22
Speaker
the doctor is not available physically, but available digitally. Priyadarci Mohapatra is the founder of Curebay, a health tech startup delivering high quality primary care to one and a half million Indians through a network of 200 village level eCleanx. Imagine meeting a super specialist of a very large hospital sitting right at your village, especially when your case history is already known to him because you've been examined and your records have been shared. This sounds too good to be true. If somebody wants to copy my model, I'll welcome that entrepreneur to come sit with me and give them every bit of my learning because I believe there are 100 cure bays required to solve this problem for a billion people
00:01:06
Speaker
Priya Darshi, welcome to the Founder Thesis podcast. You run a
Urban vs. Rural Healthcare Discrepancies
00:01:11
Speaker
health tech startup called Curebay. You've raised a ton of money. ah i want to first understand, ah you know, I want to take a zoom out, zoom in kind of an approach. ah Help me understand what healthcare in India looks like. I mean, there are different parts within healthcare. care What do you mean by primary, secondary, tertiary? What all is happening? And then within this landscape, where does Curebay fit in?
00:01:34
Speaker
sure so actually should let me give you an overall picture of the topography of healthcare in india and if you look at it there are two distinct parts to this topography one is the urban healthcare setup and the other is the rural healthcare setup urban healthcare setup in india is actually pretty world-class because we have very high quality high-end tertiary intervention centers whether it's the what do you mean by tertiary like just define that this is where a patient sort of gets uh an intervention which could be a surgical intervention or they're admitted in the hospital and there is some interventions which are being done on the patient ah which could be from surgical processes to observations under a long period. And then you have secondary healthcare, care which is where you get these minor cuts or you have a broken hand and somebody needs to plaster or do this. But again, you know, there's some of feature functions which are getting done on the body of a patient, right?
00:02:29
Speaker
And then you have primary health care where basically you come for your first level of concern, right? You meet a GP. You said you're having a bad cold, you're a fever, you have a conversation, you're asked to do some medication. Typically, how the journey happens is you get referred from a primary health care center.
00:02:44
Speaker
If you need you're examined, you're checked. And then from there on, you get referred to tertiary centers. ah But what has
Challenges Facing Rural Healthcare Providers
00:02:51
Speaker
happened in India is if you see our health care infrastructure is pretty much skewed towards urban India.
00:02:57
Speaker
I mean, we have 30-40% of the population living in urban India, but close to 65% of all healthcare infrastructure is skewed towards urban India. ah Whereas rural India doesn't get their fair share of healthcare infrastructure. Now, to be very honest, I think kudos to the government because in a complex geography like ours, ah to make healthcare reachable for over close to 100 crore people living in rural India is not a joke.
00:03:23
Speaker
right And government has created a five-tier healthcare infrastructure. right It starts with the district headquarter hospitals where you can get the tertiary interventions. Then you have community healthcare centers, which can take care of primary and secondary. And then have primary healthcare care centers, which typically are the first point of contact for a lot of people living in rural India.
00:03:41
Speaker
And the challenge as a country that we have not been able to solve is to ensure the availability of providers in all these places. right So if you walk into a district headquarter hospital, even in a rural market or slightly interiors, you will find doctors available there. right But as you go down the value chain, as you go to the community healthcare care center, primary healthcare care center, you'll find a lot of places don't have doctors.
00:04:05
Speaker
And this is where ah the patient journey in India sort of gets challenged, right? Whereas people like you and me, I think we're really privileged. We live in urban pockets where we directly walk into a tertiary facility a lot of the time, even for our primary requirements, because every tertiary facility will have an OPD outpatient, which is where most of the primary intervention happens, right? That sort of will give you a good view of how the healthcare infrastructure itself in the country is skewed more towards urban, hence creating a challenge for rural India.
00:04:37
Speaker
I remember that some of my younger
Curebay's Hybrid Model and Financial Strategies
00:04:41
Speaker
cousins were pursuing like an MDE and there was some requirement of a mandatory rural stint.
00:04:49
Speaker
So does does that not help in solving this problem? And what exactly is that requirement of a rural stint? Yeah, great question. i think, you know, actually government has tried everything from the carrot to the stick. There is incentive to go and do rural practice to government making it mandatory.
00:05:06
Speaker
And if you're passing out from the government colleges, you have to spend two years in the rural facilities offering your services. Now, the challenge is more social than any kind of mandatory regulation. Because if you see ah the reality is only 1% of people probably get through PG seats, through government colleges, through competitive competitive exams.
00:05:26
Speaker
the rest of the people getting into PG actually go through a very high capitation fee into private institutions. And for them to go and sort of service the loan that they have taken to fund their education and practice in rural India creates a kind of dichotomy which remains unsolved.
00:05:43
Speaker
Hence, there is a natural resistance to go and practice in rural India. There's a lot of upfront investment to become an entrepreneur. You need to recover that investment by working where the money is. and the money And that's the reason why I said, listen, whatever we do in terms of creating policies, design, market forces will always rule.
00:06:03
Speaker
Somebody has paid a huge sum of money for an education course. and They need to figure out a way, even if they have the best its intent to pay back. If they if they are reeling under the You know, debt trap, how will they offer the right kind of services to you and healthcare is something where you require a lot of empathy. So when you yourself are pressurized, how would you expect them to extend that empathy to others?
00:06:25
Speaker
And these five-tier government centers are largely free, I assume? Yeah, got most so india has India behaves like a welfare state. okay And a lot of the healthcare care facilities that we offer to people through the government infrastructure is actually free.
00:06:40
Speaker
Okay,
Curebay's Digital and Local Healthcare Integration
00:06:41
Speaker
I mean if you walk into a primary health care center, you meet a doctor. Even some of these places have a medicine dispensing place called Niramai and in these places you get the medicines and all also for free. On top of that you have infrastructure from government like Jana Oshadhi and all, ah which are very very affordable generic drugs ah which government has created at distribution. So yeah, I mean Though we spend a small part of our GDP into healthcare, and I think the recent budget has actually highlighted more spends into this domain, ah the government has actually done a fabulous job in trying to extend a lot of the services free. But the challenge is ah if you reach a place and you don't have a doctor, how does the free service matter for me?
00:07:23
Speaker
we I think we've done a fabulous job today on the Ayushman Bharat side. but What is that? and aman So Bharat scheme typically is like an insurance scheme. It's a health insurance. You and I take a private health insurance, right? From a lot of the people in the socioeconomic class living in rural India, they're actually covered under the Ayushman Bharat scheme. So when they reach even a private hospital, and and a lot of private hospitals are impaneled under this scheme, ah they get the entire tertiary to a certain limit free because government pays the hospital.
00:07:52
Speaker
Right. ah But again, as a country, you have made tertiary available to the socioeconomic class three, but nobody really wakes up in the morning and says, I want to go for a surgery. Right. You have a discomfort. You meet a doctor. The doctor would advise you to take some medicine, get some tests done.
00:08:09
Speaker
And almost all these expenses are out of pocket. ah So the cost of care does not go down in some ways if you look at it, though your tertiary is taking care. And we don't have a scheme like NHS, which you can have, which where everything is covered. So, ah but we made rapid strides. I think you can see the ABDM, the Ayeshwan Bharat digital mission, which is happening, which is ah just like Aadhaar. We are trying to create unique IDs so that data portability could be across ah facilities who are part of the ABDM certified platform. And you patients don't have to repeat the test the same process.
00:08:41
Speaker
data can be used by doctors to sort of give recommendations and suggestions to what needs to be done next. This is Ayushman Bharat Digital Platform. I've been hearing about this for, I guess, four years now. um I'm yet to experience it firsthand at any medical provider where I get some sort of an ID and I'm told that all your records are here and they're portable. most In most cases, I still get paper, like printouts of reports, etc. but What is the status on that?
00:09:13
Speaker
It's a good observation, Akshay. I think as a country, we are moving towards digitization of a lot of healthcare records. But if you ask me, have we made significant progress there? I think it's work in progress. And what is unique about Abha ID, which is the equivalent of universal health ID vis-a-vis your Aadhaar ID is Aadhaar entire initiative was done by government themselves. If you see Abha ID, government is actually partnered with private players. Like Cureway is a certified partner.
00:09:39
Speaker
People visiting my clinics, I can actually create Abha IDs for them. Okay, so the government has taken a very different approach here. They're working with private players like us. ah We have to go through a certification process, but we can create ABHIDs for people walking in. You don't have to go through a government center only to create your ABHID. Once this is created, see it's had to there are multiple ways in which it will happen. um Your electronic health records, of you know your personal healthcare care record records, ah which is what people are looking at creating in a place which is digitized, that kept so that when you need that information, you're able to retrieve it easily and smartly. A lot of even startups and private players are creating PHRs which are now EBDM approved, right, and HIA approved. So you can create your ABHA ID, your records can be stored, and that record can be moved across other platforms which are also certified.
00:10:28
Speaker
Right. So ah it's it's a mission. It's a project as a country for to do it for one point to one point three billion people is not easy, but we have shown the world we have been able to do it for Aadhaar. And I'm pretty sure in the next few years you will see a lot of unique health care ideas existing in the country and people actually using EHR to retrieve their data.
00:10:49
Speaker
ABHA ID, so let's say i'm booking a like a health test from one of these apps, whatever, Healthians or any of these. So I can put in an ABHA ID there and the my test results will then be available there and portable. It depends on the platform. If the platforms are certified,
00:11:09
Speaker
across certified platforms, there is a portability of data. but if you But there are multiple private apps available today. If you use an app which is outside this certified ecosystem, but yeah then you will still have your health records kept somewhere, but your data portability get across other platforms will be a challenge. Okay, got it.
00:11:28
Speaker
I guess there is incentive for everyone to avoid portability, right? I remember telecom companies had to be dragged into offering portability because you want your you want' high exit costs for the customer. Yeah, okay, got it. Okay, so now within this ecosystem, tell me what exactly is CureWe're doing?
00:11:50
Speaker
let me give you a little bit of a context to cure where when i explain to you the topography of the healthcare ecosystem in the entire country i told you about the urban and rural and i also sort of highlighted how the infrastructure skew in rural has actually
Scaling and Partnership Strategies of Curebay
00:12:06
Speaker
accentuated the problem a lot because 70% of your infrastructure is catering to 35% of the people, right? And this challenge is more seen when you come down to a primary healthcare level ah where, you know, patients go there and don't find doctors, right? And this sort of is the first point of contact for a lot of rural patients. So what used to happen, Naksha, is when you go to a PHC, don't find a doctor, your next logical pit stop was typically a pharmacy.
00:12:30
Speaker
And pharmacy stores in India, the penetration is pretty good, right? And... You go there expecting to, even we do it in urban India, right? We walk into a medicine store and say, listen, I'm having a headache, the human nature, right?
00:12:43
Speaker
The danger in rural is this medicine stores a lot of times are not even run by a licensed pharmacist. These are run by somebody who's got access to capital in that rural market, right? He's got capital, he's opened a medicine store, there are ways and means to use a pharmacy license to get your drug license.
00:12:59
Speaker
When a patient walks in there, they behave like a doctor and hand over a medicine. Now, what's wrong in that? What's wrong is 9 out of 10 times the medicine handed over is actually an antibiotic. The patient doesn't know about it. They don't have a prescription. So they don't have the course.
00:13:13
Speaker
As a result, rural India is dangerously becoming antibiotic resistant. That's the first sort of problem we identified. My logical mind started asking me questions. Why are they not just going to the district head for the hospitals? Because ah they will get government infrastructure available with free services. And that's where you also find doctors. So why don't they just travel? And the initial hypothesis was probably the reason to avoid travel is commercial because two people will travel, right? A patient and a caregiver.
00:13:42
Speaker
yeah on top of that it's not that they need somebody's waiting to attend to them right they spend two or three days so that's add to the cost of travel this cost of staying most importantly the cost gets amplified because unlike you and me for them every day invested in healthcare is a day of loss of income so they're constantly debating in their mind that listen two days of loss of income right so all this adds up to a huge commercial impact and my hypothesis was this the reason they're not avoiding the trap But I was surprised when I came to know that while commercial is an important reason, that's not the main reason to avoid travel. The main reason to avoid travel was the expedites.
00:14:17
Speaker
They reached there from bus stops, railway stations, even corridors of government hospital. They are approached by a very large informal network of what we call as healthcare dalas or brokers in India. These people understand their pain point. And they have a sharp eye. They know these people sleeping outside in the corridors of the government hospital, are people who have traveled from rural India. They'll go and tell them, how long will you wait? I'll take you to somebody who where you'll get immediate medical attention. And they take them to places where they have an access, right? They end up going there, spending money, not getting the right service. And that experience is so broken, a lot of the time you'll hear them telling you, gon me meing it but we don't want to travel.
00:14:55
Speaker
We're okay with that informal provider. And this we identified as a problem impacting a billion people in this country and somebody had to do something about it. You just can't leave it saying but public health care is government's problem to solve. right And no new age, innovative startup in healthcare was doing anything about rural, they were solving for you and me. We can get a medicine in 10 minutes at home. We can get a phlebo, but that's not the challenge they were dwelling with, right? The supply chains of that urban models did not even exist in rural India.
00:15:25
Speaker
ah So that's where Curebay was born. So we took a very different approach. We created a hybrid model. So the part one of our model actually was a very robust tech platform that we built, which was designed on the principle of continuity of care.
00:15:39
Speaker
And we aggregated the physical healthcare ecosystem on this platform. So doctors, hospitals, labs, pharmacists, we aggregated them on this platform. And we allowed them to collaborate real-time to deliver health outcomes.
00:15:53
Speaker
To be very honest, this was the easiest part of our journey. The challenge was, how do you ensure these health outcomes reach those remote and medically underserved locations? And that's where the part two of our model came, where we opened a network of satellite clinics, which were physical in nature, called QRB e-clinics.
00:16:11
Speaker
Each of these clinics had physical presence of a pharmacist and nurse. They were extremely asset-light and designed for assisted healthcare. And what we did in each of these centers, we provided them with three things. One was access to a platform so they could access all service and service providers.
00:16:27
Speaker
We gave them a few medical-grade devices which they can use for capturing patients' data and vitals. Like BP and fever. and Yes, BP, sugar, you can do an auscultation, all those can be even the 12-lead ECG was provided there if required.
AI and Technology's Role in Curebay
00:16:42
Speaker
And then we provided them with a few point-of-care tests. So common tests required for rural India, like 70% of the tests are routine tests, right? Hemoglobin lipid profile, sugar, HVA ones, could all be done there. The machine was over there only to throw out a result.
00:16:57
Speaker
There was no need to send it to a collection center. No. so So, so like part of the, all the routine tests, majority of the routine, again, we operated in the principle of Pareto. We said, what are those 20% tests that we can do, which covers 70% of the requirement? But we didn't stop there, actually. And that's a great question you asked. What about the tests that we could not do on the clinic?
00:17:16
Speaker
right So ah we trained our staffs to also be phlebotomists, which means they could draw blood sample. right And every clinic of ours had a centrifuge. So we could draw the sample, we could centrifuge the sample, and then we created a rider network of our own, which could now come and collect the sample from there in icebox so that the sample is not spoiled, and then use multimodal transportation to bring it to a partner lab.
00:17:40
Speaker
where the sample gets analyzed and post analysis the partner lab uses our same tech platform so real time the report is available at my clinic so i could either take a printout and give it to the person or i could even push it to the whatsapp so in this way what we did was we solved for almost 70 80 percent of the basic healthcare requirement from doctor consultation pre-consultation to medicine requirement to diagnostic at the center but we didn't stop him We realize that people will need, some of them will need tertiary intervention and we don't do tertiary intervention, right? One question, how does the doctor consultation happen? So you told me you have a nurse and a pharmacist there and the nurse is also a phlebotomist so he or she can draw blood and you have some testing happening on premise, some testing will go to a partner lab. I'm assuming pharmacy would be a tie-up with some player who would deliver pharmacies.
00:18:32
Speaker
What about the doctor consult? So what we tried to do was we said we will not want the customer to use any technology. In fact, the patient journey at a cure-by clinic should be exactly the same like an urban patient's journey to a polyclinic.
00:18:48
Speaker
So imagine the scenario, somebody walks into our clinic, they're greeted by our staff who are trained healthcare workers, they are Then the vitals are measured. youll get We ask them some basic questions to understand why they're there and we triage the condition and create what is called as a Clinical note, right? If you go to Apollo today or to any other large hospital, when you take an appointment to meet a doctor, before you meet the doctor, somebody attending the doctor meets you, right? They measure your height, wear sugar. This is exactly the same process which is done there.
00:19:20
Speaker
Then you're taken to a room to meet the doctor. The only difference is here the doctor is not available physically but available digitally. 20% of the time we actually ensure the doctor physically available. But anytime you walk in, you'll meet a doctor because if they're not physically available, they'll digitally be available.
00:19:37
Speaker
But this is where it becomes interesting. This is not a vanilla teleconsultation. The doctor, when they're digitally consulting with the patient, at the same time, our staff assist the doctor. For example, the doctor might need an auscultation to be done. Especially rural patients, if you haven't put the stethoscope, you haven't seen them. So our staff puts the stethoscope, measures the blood pressure and all that, right? And because it's an integrated platform, the doctor is able to see all the values.
00:20:01
Speaker
And based on that, the doctor now delivers their prescriptions. Like a digital stethoscope. Yes, it's a digital stethoscope. Post this all this data capture, the doctor seeing the data, doctor consulting with the patient, the doctor delivers a prescription which comes as a digital prescription.
00:20:18
Speaker
And then based on what is the advice the doctor has given based on that prescription, what is the next call to action, the medicines are supplied to the patient, the tests are done to the patient, and that's how you handle them through the patient journal.
00:20:30
Speaker
Do you create an ABHA ID for everyone who comes in or they have to ask you? Yeah, we take the consent, we take the permission and we tell them, listen, we can create your ABHA ID here. And those who keep the consent, we do create their ABHA IDs. What is the percentage of people who have an ABHA ID?
00:20:46
Speaker
See, we we got our certification about a couple of months back. ah So since then, we are trying to see that majority of the patients walking into our clinic, we are getting an ABHA because it's free. So you just create an ABHA ID for everybody. What is the incentive that you have to create an ABA ID? Because it gives them easy exit from Cureme.
00:21:04
Speaker
So one is the credibility itself, right? When you say that you're part of a government program and you're creating a government ID, there's a massive credibility that you get. But over and above that, government actually made it easier for private players like us because they gave monetary benefits.
00:21:18
Speaker
Okay, that scheme continued for some time, then they discontinued, it started again. So if you create Abhaidi, there's some amount which is paid. And as you add health records to those Abhaidis, as you enrich those Abhaidis, you have paid some additional money. This is not a permanent scheme, it's a temporary scheme. It's like an accelerator program to, you know, sort of get the private players to do this.
00:21:39
Speaker
You have that initial primary consult there, but that wouldn't cover all cases, right? So what happens when someone needs more serious intervention? Yeah, if so somebody needs, if our doctor, so imagine how the process happens, right? The doctor does a consultation.
00:21:56
Speaker
Typically, when the doctor is consulting with you, the first consultation is like a prognosis. The doctor forms a hypothesis about you, right? Then they ask you to have medicines, then ask you to get tests, which is nothing but collecting more data about you.
00:22:08
Speaker
And this data helps the doctor convert the prognosis into a diagnosis and that's how they put you on a care protocol. right Now, if during this process the doctor understands that you need a tertiary intervention, some of your test results are clearly indicating towards that, they'll refer you for a tertiary intervention.
00:22:24
Speaker
What we do there, there are two things that happen. You might be referred to a specialist, in which case we immediately arrange for a specialist consultation for the patient in rural India. Right there, only thing is we take 24 to 48 hours.
00:22:37
Speaker
Online or? It's online. It's online. So we get them to speak to an endocrinologist, nephrologist, a cardiologist, whatever they're referred to. Okay. But again, we ensure that they don't have to travel. They don't have to worry. Imagine meeting a super specialist of a very large hospital sitting right at your village, especially when your case history is already known to him because you have been examined and your records have been shared. So you're sort of transforming the experience which they have not done. Now, post the specialist intervention or even if there are early cases where even the GP would recommend that in your confirmed case of appendicitis, you should go to the hospital and get the appendicitis removed. We very transparently tell them who are the partner hospitals on our network.
00:23:19
Speaker
By the way, which partner hospitals are covered under the government scheme? Because a lot of these people have the government scheme, right? So they would like to know that. Ayushman Bharat. yes so so you have to understand actually in healthcare care in india is a state subject so ashman bharat is a national scheme but there are some states which run their own scheme like orissa used to earlier have a bsky scheme because we had a different government at the state right uh but today we have an improvised version of the ashman bharat scheme here called gopabandu scheme so every state will have some other other scheme either a version of ashman bharat or their own scheme right
00:23:53
Speaker
Now you give people that transparency, which hospitals have that. Most importantly, what you do, you pre-schedule a date for them to go when the doctor is available, grooms are available.
00:24:03
Speaker
And I'll tell you why this is important. Because when they go there, there's somebody from Cure Bay, available just like a family doctor. It's a concierge service that we offer them to take them to a partner hospital to get their paperwork done, get them admitted. Now this is really transformative because what used to happen earlier,
00:24:19
Speaker
Even if they knew there's a government private hospital under the government scheme, when they reach there, a lot of the time the hospital tells them the bed is not available. Your sugar is pretty high. You know, you need to have this medication. Come back. So there used to be multiple trips.
00:24:32
Speaker
And refer to my earlier point, for these people, a day invested in healthcare, is a day of loss of income. So when you make them travel multiple times, you're actually not just increasing their cost of care, you're making the experience very broken for them.
00:24:46
Speaker
And here, sitting at their village, it's fixed for them. They go there, somebody needs to receive them, get them admitted so that they get the intervention and come back. And they don't pay anything because the hospital is paid directly by the government.
00:24:57
Speaker
so So that's how we sort of complete the circle for them. Interesting. um I want to... Talk a little bit about money. What does one center cost you? Like, do you pay rent there? And what are the salaries there typically? What's like a monthly outlay?
00:25:13
Speaker
In this deep rural markets, we have no intention of owning real estate. So we go and find a property which is suitable for a clinic. We take it on rental basis. Typically, the operating expenses of a clinic, depending on the location we are, would range between...
00:25:26
Speaker
Say on the lower side, 35,000 to on then the higher side, 55,000. So that's would be the range between 35 to 55,000, including rent, including the salary that we pay to the two people certified health care workers that we have there.
00:25:39
Speaker
what What are the revenue sources for a center? So every transit, so we have two sources of revenue. One is transactional revenue. So whether you do a consultation, whether you get a diagnostic test done, whether you buy medicine from us, whether you go for a surgical referral through us, all these are paid services. So in some cases, the patient directly pays us. Like if you're doing a consultation, you pay from your pocket. If you're buying a medicine, you pay. And if you're going for a surgery under the government scheme, the hospital gives us um partnership fee that we have with them. But all these are transactional.
00:26:10
Speaker
We also have a very, very interesting program, Akshay, and I would like to talk about it called Kavach. And this is, this in my view is truly revolutionizing how healthcare is getting consumed in rural India. And I think this is the biggest differentiator for QLB. And I have to give you a little bit of context to this, right? I mean, people in rural India seek healthcare in a very different manner compared to you and me.
00:26:35
Speaker
If something happens to us, if we have a healthcare concern, you know, we are privileged lot. Our family, our friends, our peer group, everybody will take us. They said, take a day off. First priority is health. Go and meet the doctor.
00:26:47
Speaker
For them, it's a constant debate. How long can I procrastinate and delay? Because they know it's going to cause loss of income for them. So typically, a lot of the time when you're actually meeting the patient, you're meeting them at a time and the condition has become acute or chronic.
00:27:01
Speaker
Okay, and they need immediate intervention. So when I was trying to build Cure Way, one of the thoughts that was always playing in my mind is, how do you ensure that you're able to move people onto a preventive journey?
00:27:14
Speaker
This is something which we have not even achieved in urban. be very i mean I was mindful of the fact that even developed countries in urban India has not done, but I was very clear that you know if I'm solving for rural, I want people to move in that direction. So we created this program called Kawat. It's a membership program.
00:27:29
Speaker
ah So actually for 499 rupees a year, Okay, we give them throughout the year free healthcare care services, doctor consultation. We give them free, a few limited number of specialist consultations. But what makes it really interesting is it's a holistic healthcare solution. So for the amount that they pay for 99 rupees, we actually need return them thousand rupees as Qubit coins.
00:27:53
Speaker
And they can use these coins to buy medicines or get tests done at my clinic first. Second, b I told you earlier that you know a lot of them are covered under the Ayushman Bharat scheme when they go for a tertiary requirement.
00:28:08
Speaker
But there's a lot of out-of-pocket expenses before the tertiary requirement. right So we've created a program. It sits very well. So we pay them 500 rupees per day. for the number of days they're admitted in the hospital so typically these are elective surgery three or four days they'll be admitted they'll get 2000 rupees which covers their out-of-pocket expenses travel a companion accompanying them and lastly we realized if you have to meaningfully solve healthcare care you not just have to solve about the health issues you have to solve one of the biggest issue for them which is a financial issue because when there's a health emergency
00:28:40
Speaker
These segments don't belong to a formal segment, right? They don't have bureau scores and all. So where do they get the money? In case of an emergency, the rash to these local money lenders. The interest rate in some cases varies from 5% to even 10% a month, right? Imagine you're taking a lakh of loan and literally paying between 60,000 rupees a lakh to service the loan.
00:29:02
Speaker
You will never come out of debt trap. And that sort of pushes a lot of people below the poverty line. So what we do, we tell them in case of an emergency, because we're a healthcare system, we can scrutinize that you're a genuine case. We'll refer you to a partner hospital of ours. If there is an emergency and if your limits have gone outside what government has already provided you We will give you that loan directly to the hospital so that there is no misuse.
00:29:24
Speaker
You pay back without interest. So it's an interest-free loan that we offer to them. Interestingly, we have done all this with partnerships with various players in the ecosystem. But the package that we offer to them at 499, comprehensively takes care of their healthcare requirements, their financial requirements, their out-of-pocket expenses, everything.
00:29:44
Speaker
The reason we also did this was we said once you create such programs and get people onto this program, then engage with them. Like you call and tell me, hey, you have free consultations, right? If there is a concern, don't wait till the condition is acute and you will not even miss a day because I am right there at your village. Come to the clinic, meet a doctor, whatever the doctor asks can be done here. After 15 minutes, you go back to the world.
00:30:05
Speaker
So there is a financial incentive as well. There's an incentive of, you know, staying healthy and not having to lose a day of job and all. And this way you sort of also pick longitudinal data about people and ensure that you're able to monitor and keep them healthy.
00:30:17
Speaker
That's the dream. That's the vision. We already have close to 130, 140,000 people on this membership program. And I think in some way, we're revolutionizing how people are consuming healthcare in rural India.
00:30:29
Speaker
See, this this sounds too good to be true. I don't see how... How you will, mean, is this a loss leader for you? like No, it is not. Very, very interesting. they I must tell you, this question has been asked to me before because exactly the reaction is exactly that. This is too good to be true, right?
00:30:50
Speaker
500 rupiah leh do, 1000 rupiah tehe ra hao, is it possible? ah This is actually the whole product has actually been designed on the same principle that insurance products are designed. It's an actual science. So you take an assumption of how many people will engage and then you create some sort of checks and balances in the process so that it's not misused. For example, when you need medicine, you will get the medicine free, but you need to consult a doctor because even...
00:31:14
Speaker
the right thing in healthcare is you should get a medicine only with a doctor prescription right so we say your consultation is free so we'll enable you to have a doctor consultation get a prescription so we give you the right medicines okay and and we sort of manage the structure that there is no misuse and there is a there is a way we sort of price it to ensure that we are still in the money and not out of money there ah similarly we do for diagnostics for the insurance cover that we give them We actually do a back-to-back insurance for every customer.
00:31:44
Speaker
But not every customer avails of the facility. So your loss ratios are actually pretty low. By insurance cover, you're referring to that 500 rupees per day. That 500 rupees, yeah. It's like a hospi cash.
00:31:55
Speaker
Okay, so under the master service agreement, we do that. And we have back-to-back covered our risk with insurance partner. ah For the last part where the interest-free loan they get...
00:32:07
Speaker
It's not interest-free actually. So, Curebay subments the loan. right So, we subvent the cost of the loan ah because we have a referral fee from the hospital. So, we leverage that to subvent the loan so that the patient doesn't feel feel the pinch.
00:32:19
Speaker
I believe there was a company which was doing something similar to this. Maybe it was called Kenco. Have you heard of them? although Yeah, it's like it was an urban it was an urban phenomenon. yeah Actually, a lot of the schemes that I've studied actually people were charging what we charge for the year even higher than that per month.
00:32:37
Speaker
But obviously they were looking at a very different kind of audience, urban audience and on to do that. But I don't think the program succeeds just by creating a product. The program succeeds by creating a manner in which you're not just making a promise, you're able to fulfill the promise.
00:32:52
Speaker
now Now just see what happens in Curebase context and why and insurance company has probably more money than me. Why are they not doing it? You might make that promise that you can have free doctor consultation, you'll get them.
00:33:03
Speaker
Where will the patient get it? They can't get it at a government facility. If to get that, they have to travel all the way to the city, they'll throw that program, right? Here, not just we have created a very powerful solution for them, we're saying the entire promise gets fulfilled at your doorstep, walk into the Q&B clinic, which is right here.
00:33:23
Speaker
That model of making a solution, which is very powerful, and then ensuring the fulfillment of that promise happens at their doorstep is what makes this product, I would say that's a secret sauce in this program.
00:33:36
Speaker
What does the P&L look like for, let's say, if you have 100,000 people who buy this product, what what would the P&L look like there? and elaborate on what what aspect of the team.
00:33:49
Speaker
Like, you make money over a hundred thousand? No, no, we do. Because see, for me, the cost of CAC is very low because I'm not into digital acquisition spending like while spending more than what I earn.
00:34:01
Speaker
My people come through the catchment area of my clinics through the Swastramitvras that we have. so So the CAC for me is very, very low. And and this product sort of, ah you know, you're getting money in advance and you're del delivering services through the year.
00:34:14
Speaker
So it's a very, very interesting product. I wouldn't like to go into details because this is sort of a differentiated product for us. But i it's a very, it's a good P&L to have. And how recent is this product?
00:34:28
Speaker
So we had an avatar of this product, not as powerful as what I spoke to you about a year year and a half back. But in the new avatar where we got it comprehensively done, it's about six months old. Okay.
00:34:39
Speaker
So too early to look at churn rates, retention rates, things like No, interestingly, a lot of, because the earlier program was over a year. So people who have come back for when that program has expired, almost 60% of them have actually renewed the program based on the new program.
00:34:53
Speaker
Okay. Okay. Okay. So very, very strong early signs of people renewing the program. Okay. Okay. Okay. Interesting. Now in this whole thing, the one piece we didn't talk about is doctors. Uh, How, like, you haven't told me how, what the doctor, so you told me 55,000 is the cost of a clinic, but that doesn't include the doctor. That's an op-ex cost. No, that's not. So doctors offer it with me in a very different model. I have two sets of doctor.
00:35:22
Speaker
The first set of doctors, what I call as M-panel doctors. ah These are doctors who are on a fixed time, on a fixed ah payout model with me. ah What I do is I use the tech platform for smart rostering of these doctors. So I have slots when they will be active on my platform. What that allows me to do Akshay is anytime,
00:35:42
Speaker
stay true to the promise that anytime you walk into a QB clinic, you meet a doctor. There is no waiting time for you. By the time your vitals are all and measured, you are taken to the room, there's a doctor live to meet you. right That part, and these are mostly GPs, so general practitioners, I price that consultation. if you're not If you're part of the membership program, obviously it's free, but if you're not, it's 100 rupees.
00:36:02
Speaker
Okay, yeah and you pay 100 rupees and meet the doctor anytime. But then I so also spoke about doctors that are super specialists or specialists that you are referr referred to right through these GPs. Now, those doctors work on a model which is an inventory model with us. So those doctors, we have to tie with certain doctors who tell me what time slots are available with a 24 to 48 hours advance notice. So when a patient needs to meet a specialist, I pre-book those three slots with them and then get the patient to meet. There we act on a revenue sharing model. There is no fixed payout for me, but there is a revenue sharing between me and the doctor.
00:36:37
Speaker
Okay, okay. these These GPs are like on your payroll. We don't call, you know never have doctors on your payroll, so you call them as mPanel doctors of yours. Okay. Got it.
00:36:49
Speaker
Do they sit out of a central place which you provide? or No. So the beauty of this model is, and we actually found a little bit of a Goldilocks zone here. um You know, doctors never retire. My mom's a doctor. She started one of the first private nursing homes and I've grown up in a house of doctors. So i've I've seen that doctors never retire.
00:37:07
Speaker
So a lot of these government doctors who had retired, we went and approached them and told them, listen, now you can practice from your home. You can still stay in touch with your patients. We will enable you to consult with the doctors digitally from wherever you are. Initially, there was a little of little bit of hesitation and inhibition to use technology. But then, you know, always thank Meta because the line I use have you used WhatsApp?
00:37:31
Speaker
Nine and a half out of ten, not even nine people will say yes. Right? And then you say, this is as simple as WhatsApp. I'll enable you to how to use it. So doctors sit from their home. There are time slots. They know these are the time slots. i I need to be active. It's a very sophisticated doctor app we provide to all these people. And through that, they consult.
00:37:50
Speaker
Okay. Okay. How big is your team? in Overall, cu the Cure Bay team. Our doctors. Cure Bay team. Yeah. Oh, we are close to 900 people now.
00:38:00
Speaker
Oh, wow. but What's the split? How many people? See, like so every clinic has two staff, right? So today we are close to 200 clinics. So that clinical staff itself is close to 50% of this time. Right. And then we have over 100 people. we are a very, we are tech company. So we have a very, very strong tech team. ah We have a specialized AI team.
00:38:20
Speaker
ah Then we have people in operations or sales and all the other supporting functions. How does sales happen? and I think the biggest method of sales for me is this whole network of swastya mitras that we create. So yeah I think I need to speak a little bit about that. So when we opened clinic, we realized that there are two sort of barriers that one has to overcome.
00:38:41
Speaker
One was rural patients were sick and tired of urban experiments. You know, when I initially went and spoke to them, they told me, you know, a lot of these camps happen, in mobile vehicles sc come.
00:38:52
Speaker
We go there because we get free breakfast. We eat the food. On our way back, we throw the medicine. And I was curious to say, why do you throw the medicine? They said, because they come at their convenience and do these camps. When I need healthcare, care who's there?
00:39:05
Speaker
So the first... parameter to establish trust was that I am there when you need me. So hence the Kiorbe clinics came in and we opened the clinic. But we realized that's not sufficient.
00:39:16
Speaker
um Initially, I thought, Akshay, I'll open a clinic and there'll be a queue outside because there was no healthcare facilities. I've got got you such an amazing clinic. But it doesn't happen because people will try to do the doodhaldi at home till they build that trust and credibility because Kiorbe was still an alien in that space, right? So we...
00:39:32
Speaker
And the catchment area of a clinic typically we define as a 0 to 10 kilometer radius. That's the maximum that somebody will come to a clinic. So we identified highly credible people. These were retired yeah school teachers. These were people who were working with NGOs, self-help groups. Even some of them were people who were associated with medical profession but had retired.
00:39:51
Speaker
Or even a pharmacy store who had a lot of clientele base but wanted to do other services. So we trained them and made them swastya mitras. The swastya mitras represented CureVet in their community. And the amazing thing we did was we created an app for them called Engage.
00:40:07
Speaker
This app sat on the mobile of my swastya mitras and extended all the services of the clinic onto their mobile. Now, these were people who had tribal knowledge of the community. They knew who's expecting a baby. They knew who's fallen sick, who's broken their legs. So they went to them and told them, hey, listen, you don't have to worry.
00:40:23
Speaker
You don't have to worry even about using technology. I will facilitate a consultation for you. i I can order medicines for you. I can get somebody from the QB clinic to come and get your test done. So they extended our services into the household of people. And that's how slowly, slowly we started building trust and credibility with the community. Because the principle was rural healthcare is not just clinical healthcare or processes or technology. It's community healthcare. care So you need to get the community along Okay, okay, okay. These are like on payroll or is this a... No, this is like a gig workforce for us, right? These are people who sort of invest a few hours in the week and obviously they get eliminated based on their efforts.
00:41:04
Speaker
Okay, okay. like Like number of signups that they... Yeah, absolutely. And everything is on the platform. There is no intermediary. Everything happens real time. We are pretty tech savvy. So there's a new banking account. So instant sort of getting the value onto to your wallet.
00:41:20
Speaker
Do you have competition? Are there other people building this sort of a remote consult ah kind of a model for rural India? I want to ensure that i'm there's humility in my answer. I don't want to sound as if I'm doing something which nobody does. But Akshay, I've tried hard to find out a similar model.
00:41:42
Speaker
And when I say similar model, somebody who's bringing full stack healthcare, not just teleconsultation. It's a commercial model, not backed by some CSR fund or a grant. And it's scaling up to the extent we have done and meaningfully solve customers. I have seen none.
00:41:58
Speaker
And I think that's the reason we are generating a lot of interest, a lot of partnerships, requests are coming because I think this is a pretty unique model. And even in some international forums have been approaching, this is a model that you're doing, whichs which has the same use case in places like Africa, Latin America, Southeast Asia, because all of them are dealing with the same problem of scarcity of doctors to patients ratio.
00:42:24
Speaker
Is this because it's an investor blind spot? Like like maybe VCs don't feel like ah serving healthcare needs primary health care needs of rural India is profitable, therefore there's no competition? or No, I won't agree with that. I mean, I have some of the best VCs on my capital.
00:42:41
Speaker
i have Alevar, which is very high on the impact. I have Bertelsmann, which is ah one of the marquee commercial VCs. I even have a sovereign fund, which is British international investment on my capital. If this was a blind spot, then you won't attract, ah you know, the nature of and the quality of VCs I spoke about. I think it was initially, it was more of a lack of a precedence. failure yeah You know, everybody wants to play safe.
00:43:08
Speaker
If you're the first one who's doing something which is market-defining, people wait and watch, right? And the second thing is a lot of people operated under the urban myth that rural India doesn't pay.
00:43:19
Speaker
Rural India seeks free healthcare, and I think QA is proving it wrong. What is the role of understanding, leveraging government ecosystems in building Kyorbe, in reaching to where you have reached so far?
00:43:33
Speaker
No, absolutely. I think eventually what we are doing is we are an adjacency to the government's effort, right? Anything that you want to build at scale in this country, I don't think any private player can do other than government. So you need to figure out, you know, how you're complementing and extending and not sort of building or replicating a process. For example, when you look at our Kavach program, it sits so beautifully to take care of the out-of-pocket expenses before somebody gets the benefit of Ayushman Bharat.
00:44:00
Speaker
A lot of the Aishwant Bharat facilities had private hospitals and you know and the lack of primary, you always used to clog the tertiary. The load at the tertiary hospitals used to increase. Now we do a screening. We actually break the load by giving them primary intervention and just ensuring the right people are going for the tertiary care. So some way we are ensuring that the exchequer, the money that is being spent by the exchequer is spent at the right places and people are getting the right benefit and the healthcare system is not getting choked.
00:44:31
Speaker
So, yeah, I mean, it goes without saying that you got to work with government in some initiatives like this. But we operate completely independently. We don't have a direct interaction with the government as of now. Some interesting experiments are happening, but yeah we we operate like an independent venture company.
00:44:47
Speaker
Okay. Okay. So this is not your first rodeo, right? tell me about ah like Tell me about how you got here, like a little bit of your career journey. Yeah. OK, so if you see, what did I do before Qubay? was with Google. I was part of the India cloud leadership business, trying to build the cloud business of Google in India, but a consumer company getting into the enterprise space. Before that, I was with Microsoft um and I was responsible for building their consumer business. So Microsoft was an enterprise company where i was building the consumer business. And I used to joke with everybody that they pay me for playing games because Xbox was part of my portfolio. yeah right Before that, I was the managing director for Avaya for Southeast Asia. I set up the mid-market business for SAP in India. I set up the retail practice.
00:45:37
Speaker
telecom the Telecom, yeah, it's a gas company. And before that, I set up the retail practice for Sun Microsystems in India. But I always say this was part two of my life. Some interesting projects with a lot of big tech names.
00:45:51
Speaker
Part one actually i had nothing to do with tech. I was a consumer person. I was part of the team that launched a brand which has become significantly large in India today called Tanishq. So the whole positioning of Tanishq on the Purity platform, the carat meter, there were a few of us who were involved in that project. So after the success of Tanishq, all six of us quit. Early days of VC funding in India, 99-2000, and everybody was doing something at dotcom.
00:46:17
Speaker
We opened a retail chain for branded jewelry called Oyster Bay. So that was my first startup. Much ahead of time before you saw the Carrot Lens, the Blue Stones of the world, we went on to become the second largest branded jewelry chain. Exited in 2006 when Fossil, the American Watch guys, acquired the brand and Rajeshmet acquired the distribution.
00:46:41
Speaker
Purely accident, I came to the tech side of the world and interestingly stayed there. Tell me a little bit more on Oysterway. How many cities, how many retail outlets had you opened by 2006?
00:46:54
Speaker
We were with our exclusive shops as well as the shopping shop network. We had 50 plus retail points at that point. And we were presenting. So those are the days which were even before the mall culture came in, right? So if you were really defining retail those days, you had to be in the high street.
00:47:12
Speaker
And you name a prominent high street in India, we were there. From the linking roads to the park streets to the CP, to the GK, MG roads. Everywhere there was an oyster mushroom.
00:47:24
Speaker
This would be like say a PC jeweler kind of a competitor. This no, are very different. You know, we realized the niche that we sort of went after that time was we said, a lot of the jewelry that was we bought in the country was bought as part of your wedding trousseau.
00:47:38
Speaker
You know, this my heavy bulky jewelry. And also in India, we buy the yellow metal as a ah Something that stays in the locker, right? It's an investment for a rainy day. Now we wanted to create a category. It was a completely new category, which is jewelry for the modern working women. Something that the modern working women will be comfortable wearing it and going to the office. So we actually called it jewelry for the living. So the idea was every other jewelry is dead and locked somewhere, but this is jewelry that people wear. So the tagline was, I used to be jewelry for the living. We were ahead of our times, I think. ah You know, the biggest success I say in retail is when demand exceeds supply.
00:48:12
Speaker
And we did encounter that situation. We realized that this requires very heavy, probably private equity kind of investment and hence exit it. Maybe we should have stayed a little bit longer, can take it but yeah exactly but nobody sees the future.
00:48:27
Speaker
Okay, okay. And what was the top line when you sold? nice Long, long back, but I think we were pretty close to a hundred crore brand at that time.
00:48:39
Speaker
Wow, which is pretty good for, i mean, at that stage. Okay, okay. Interesting. So, and after the sales, why did you go into tech? like So, then you joined SAP. So, no, so this is a very interesting story. So actually after the exit happened, i was pretty clear I want to take a break, a sabbatical, then come and start my next startup. So I had an admission in INSEAD Watton.
00:49:02
Speaker
And I had decided to join INSEAD because INSEAD was one year. And I said, I'll go to Fontainebleau, then do a few semesters in Singapore. They had a tie with Watton, so I'll do Watton and Watton. Completely network, then come and start my next venture.
00:49:15
Speaker
And at that juncture, and i met somebody who's been my mentor and guide ever since then, Mr. Bhaskar Pramanik, who's also the chairman of my board today. He was the head of Sun Microsystems.
00:49:27
Speaker
We had a conversation which changed my sort of decision-making. And I said, let me go into a new world. I considered him my first VC after my exit saying, okay, here I'm getting paid to try something to build a retail practice for Sun in India. And from then on, I think,
00:49:43
Speaker
I saw success one after the other and continued in the tech world till COVID happened. ah Till COVID happened and all of us got into a complete lockdown mode. I had a bit of a health issue at home. My wife actually needed attention and was wondering what to do because we were all like literally we could only step into the balcony to hit those plates with the spoon.
00:50:06
Speaker
Domestic guards, with security guards were not coming home. Domestic help was not coming. And this was the first phase, right? Complete lockdown. I didn't know what to do and I tried to reach out to a private hospital and appointment was fixed ah through the corporate types that we had.
00:50:20
Speaker
And somebody asked me for my Skype ID. I bust out laughing. I said, listen, I used to head Microsoft's consumer business. Skype was a product. I don't have a Skype ID. So who's using Skype in today's day and day? that That's all triggered so many thoughts in my mind. And that's when one thought led to the other and started working on my thesis. And Kurebe was born. Yeah.
00:50:42
Speaker
For founders who are trust transitioning into corporate roles, and like you did a pretty hard pivot there from complete found startup to a like a legacy corporate, what advice do you have?
00:50:58
Speaker
Like, and you succeeded in that corporate stint as well. So, you know what? When we exited from Oysterby and I was getting to corporate again in Sun, lot of people told me, listen, you've been a founder, how will you now sort of work? that And to be honest, I think it's such a non-issue.
00:51:14
Speaker
Because if your entrepreneurship is not just about starting your company, I think it's is a mindset. And when I joined Sun, Bhaskar told me one thing. he says, I'm hiring you because you're an entrepreneur. We don't have a practice building. So for me, it was again doing something completely new, building something. And i think that's the strength, you know, entrepreneurs see opportunity where others see a challenge.
00:51:34
Speaker
And again, the same thing when I went from Sun to SAP, mid-market was a very small business for them. Right. And they wanted somebody to build the mid-market. And when I exited the mid-market business was bigger than the enterprise business.
00:51:47
Speaker
And when I went to Avaya, Avaya had been just taken private by TPG and Silver Lake and they had acquired Nautil with the acquisition had not gone the right way and they were looking at a leadership for turnaround. So I joined Avaya for turnaround.
00:51:59
Speaker
I already told you about Microsoft. I joined an enterprise company to head the consumer business and we grew it here. and so So I believe that if you have that mindset, you will find entrepreneurial opportunities even in governments.
00:52:13
Speaker
And if you're a true entrepreneur, you'll build new businesses, you'll turn around businesses, you'll take it to a different level and enjoy. And you'll get the same kind of fulfillment and kick. ah Maybe in one place you have equity, the other place you have RSUs. That's the only difference.
00:52:28
Speaker
You know, you've scaled up Cure Bay pretty fast. You started in 21. I think you've raised almost close to $40 million till date. 35 million till date, 200 clinics so far.
00:52:43
Speaker
um what you know What are those principles which you would have learned over your two-decade career which helped you to scale at this pace and this speed?
00:52:54
Speaker
I think one guiding principle for me has been execution first. you know Ideas are dimer doesn't. Not that people did not know that rural healthcare care is a gap. Everybody ah Everybody probably at some point would have thought how to solve it, what to solve it, and then created their own hypothesis, dropped the idea.
00:53:11
Speaker
oh For me, my learning has been, listen, if there is an opportunity, jump into it, execute it Execution itself will teach you. And I think this principle has been also influenced a lot in some of the corporates that I've worked.
00:53:24
Speaker
ah but We spoke about growth mindset, learner's mindset, that every day you've got to approach the work that you've got learn something. So I've been very, yeah would say, audacious in terms of trying new things. I've picked it up for my corporate days.
00:53:37
Speaker
MVP approach that startups talk about. like i I don't even call it an MVP approach. I said, just go all out. Put your heart and mind to it. Because the moment you say something like an MVP, you are sort of ah trying to mitigate risk.
00:53:52
Speaker
You're de-risking yourself. If you're a true entrepreneur, you believe in the idea, don't think about de-risking. Make sure works. Make sure it happens. And I'll give you an example. When ah we were opening the clinics… How much into the journey did you open your first clinic? like Did you think you'll do digital only and learnt clinic later? or Eight months.
00:54:11
Speaker
i No, no, no, no. The model from day one, what we thought is exactly what we operate into the hybrid. There are some very interesting adjacencies which have now developed on our data play, on our tech play. That's beside the point. But the core hybrid approach was there from day one. So when I started working on the idea, I was working towards opening my first clinic and it took me what about six months, seven months to open the first clinic.
00:54:34
Speaker
Okay. And again, you know, I was actually advised to do a lot of market research, do price testing, ah do demand discovery and all that. And I said, listen, the best way to do it is open a clinic.
00:54:51
Speaker
You believe in the idea, open it. Because you're going to continue in it. So every time something doesn't work, you'll figure out a way to make it work and go to the next one. And that sort of has been the mantra that I've always told. The other thing I've followed throughout my corporate learning, which I Even embraced today and my teams started making fun of me. and say I said, always trade in favor of speed.
00:55:10
Speaker
ah You cannot deliberate, intellectualize a problem to the extent that you're losing time. Okay, it's good to take views, but there has to be a captain of the ship. You're not running a political party here. You have to take decisions, move on.
00:55:24
Speaker
And you trade in favor of speed and go ahead, execute. Because the best learning comes when you try. It doesn't work, you fail, you pick up the nuances and move forward. ah So, a clinic one, how did you decide where to open it? and you know ah So, so not now you caught me on my weak spot. So, initially, you know, ah here for all the training, formal training I had in terms of relying on data, what to do, actually went by my gut.
00:55:51
Speaker
And initially, I was completely... although sort of and the idea possess to I was possessed with the idea that I have to go to places where no healthcare needs to reach.
00:56:02
Speaker
And I went really remote. I went so remote that even patients didn't exist. like So I told myself, listen, one has to be practical about it. You got to go to an area where they have a basic critical mass. There's a catchment. There is a density. so instead of And the other learning for me was when you go very deep inside a village, you're seen as that village clinic. Even the patient from the next village will not come. So you have to find nodal points.
00:56:26
Speaker
Typically, you see this village hearts happen. They happen in nodal points so that people from the adjoining villages also come for shopping. If you go deep into a village, you have that village phenomena. Okay, so we moved away from the blocks and taluks, but we started targeting those nodal points, those places which added decent catchment ah so that the commercial viability could be done. So the first clinic, did I sort of do a brilliant job in selecting the location? Absolutely not. But I think we did a brilliant job in terms of the speed of execution and learning fast that you got to be practical about some of these things.
00:56:59
Speaker
So that clinic is no longer there? No, it's still there. is still okay okay interesting But 5 to 10% of our clinics, we have gone wrong, not with the first clinic.
00:57:11
Speaker
But even there in the early days, we have gone wrong. And and we have gone wrong not just because of the location, we have gone wrong for multiple reasons. so but We initially went with franchising model. So we looked at a local person to sort of run, again, based on the same model of trust and credibility. And then we realized that in healthcare, you got to be very, very careful on ensuring the trust infrastructure that you're setting up. So the delivery has to be in your control and some of the changes we made on them.
00:57:36
Speaker
Okay. And when did you raise your first round? Was it after the clinic got opened? or Yeah, I raised 22 October, about what several eight months after my first clinic opened. By then I had eight or nine clinics.
00:57:50
Speaker
ah So that was all self-financed, the the that Yeah, so i I put in my own money, my co-founders put in money and we had a very, very interesting round with friends and families. In fact, I had like 22 CEOs of India join my friends and family's round yeah and we we had a decent amount of money. We raised over a million in our friends and family round and that sort of funded the initial journey.
00:58:13
Speaker
What was the pitch to... A typical VC, so one is an impact VC like say Alivar would obviously be seeking out opportunities like Kiorbe. But for a more traditional kind of a VC, what's the pitch to them? Like this 21 million round you raised last year.
00:58:30
Speaker
ah You know, I truly believe a good VC, even an impact VC, Alivar, is very, very commercially focused. I think the returns that you see a good impact VC makes is better than commercial VC. So I was very clear, there is no two different kinds of pitch.
00:58:44
Speaker
The pitch is very clear. This is the audience. okay So the audience that we are going after is rural audience. We are looking at a million people's problem that we are solving through a hybrid approach and we are solving in a commercial environment.
00:58:58
Speaker
We are not doing something which is for charity. We are not doing something which is forever wait forever for something to happen because you are impacting a lot of people's lives. We will return. It's a non-trivial problem.
00:59:09
Speaker
To solve this, I require non-trivial money. And to get non-trivial money, i have to show people that they make money to attract more capital to come in. So that was the story was consistent for all the visas. It's just that at what time, who came in?
00:59:22
Speaker
oh What's your moat? And ah forgive me for saying this, but in this podcast, you pretty much explained your business model. Somebody listening to this podcast could say, okay, I'll impanel doctors and I will go and open clinics in rural India. You've got 200, so which means there's probably scope for 2000 such clinics. So you're probably at just 10% of the opportunity at this stage. What's your moat?
00:59:46
Speaker
I honestly believe, and actually this is coming straight from the heart. If somebody wants to copy my model, I'll welcome that entrepreneur to come sit with me and give them every bit of my learning because I believe there are one hundred cure base required to solve this problem for a billion people.
01:00:02
Speaker
I am in Orissa, Chhethysgarh, Jhakkhand. In the foreseeable future, I'll be in Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana, Andhra, Eastern UP. I would have just scratched the surface.
01:00:14
Speaker
So if this model can become a legacy that I create, and there are other founders who can take it, solve in different parts, which I can't reach in the time that I see, I will believe that's how success should look for CureBit, not just what I'm achieving at CureBit.
01:00:30
Speaker
And that's the reason I'm absolutely not hesitant about discussing any part of the model. Okay, amazing, amazing. You said you discovered opportunities in data and tech later on What are those opportunities you've discovered?
01:00:44
Speaker
You know, we if you look at it, we tried to solve a very hard problem. We were trying to solve for rural healthcare and you realized not everything can be physically made available. So you need to rely on tech. Also, for screening people, you need to develop models.
01:00:57
Speaker
And some of these models were AI models because you could not create very expensive devices to go and screen people, right? And in real sense, the strength that Curebe had was we were collecting very...
01:01:10
Speaker
compliant real-time data from the ground because we had like a clinic network where for 200 clinic you're talking about 400 trained healthcare care workers on top of that add a thousand swastamitras so you had a very strong sort of i would say army on the ground to collect data now i realized a lot of the people lot of the startups are creating these ai models in healthcare because it's become very fashionable and raise money and i came from the world where google or microsoft could give you an api for you to create a smart model, right? 96% of this was trained on synthetic data.
01:01:43
Speaker
You cannot rely on that to make any kind of prediction in something as sensitive as healthcare. The true meaning of a model is which is trained on real data. That's what we are doing. if We have developed six or seven AI models which we are training with real data. We don't talk too much about it, but a year or two down the line, these will probably be far more accurate in terms of the prediction, the way they're getting trained today.
01:02:03
Speaker
And the reason I said discovered it, because we were approached by people saying, can we get data to train the models? And I realized, listen, I have the data. I have the ability to to create the model. Why not build? Second discovery for us has been, we created this real time, fully integrated platform, right? From tertiary to primary to my network on the ground, to not everything is connected. I don't think a model like this existed because the large hospitals which had the money did not have the need to create some a model. They all, they really, live in terms of technology, what they use was a hospital information management system.
01:02:35
Speaker
right Everybody else was doing it physically, not doing it. The model that we have created today is something which I think the country needs. If you have physical infrastructure in place, you have shortage of doctors, you want to kind connect all your primary centers with tertiary, which is where the doctors are available. So connect the demand points with where supply is available. You need a platform like this. So some very interesting conversations are happening on leveraging our platform.
01:03:01
Speaker
But I don't think there are players who do both primary and tertiary, right? I mean, tertiary is a separate... Nobody does. But yeah, so so the way this is going to evolve is it's an ecosystem play.
01:03:13
Speaker
The ecosystem would like to be connected because people are doing bits of it. And for them to get connected, they need a platform like this. So this would be like a practical, like a standalone SaaS that you're seeing it or are you selling it as a white-labeled solution?
01:03:27
Speaker
No, we will probably, I mean, it's too early to comment on that, but I think the power of the platform and the conversation we are having is, it could be a pure Texas model that we can take into the market.
01:03:38
Speaker
Okay, okay, okay. I want to zoom in a little bit more on AI. This is what I imagine when you tell me you are creating healthcare AI models. Like, say a model hears the stethoscope output and sees the BP and the temperature and a couple of such data points. And on the basis of that, predicts a 90% probability that this patient has pneumonia. Is that the way a model... That's one. There's one use case. This is not the exact model QRB has. But we have some very simple model, I'll tell you. You know, the markets that we operate, for example, we operate a lot on the coastal belt because we started Norrisalite.
01:04:16
Speaker
Skin is a problem. Dermatology is problem and availability of dermatologists is an issue. So we have a very smart AI where you take picture of your skin. upload it, the AI will tell you if... So what we do, we use the model to risk stratification of risk.
01:04:30
Speaker
So if you are risk stratified as a high risk person, then we immediately tell you now connect with the QLB cleaning and we can get a doctor dermatologist to see. So we close the loop. So we first use the AI model for a risk stratification screening and then the high risk people, we connect with professionals who will give you the right medical advice to close the loop. So there's no point scaring somebody with an AI model and then leaving them high and dry. Exactly the same thing we do for dental.
01:04:58
Speaker
you know A lot of people chew bitter nut there and they have dental issues. So we tell them just take very easily take two or three pictures, upload it. And even we don't expect the end customers to do it. So we give a lot of this product our swasthamitras.
01:05:10
Speaker
So my Swastamitra knows you, they're having a conversation, they'll tell you, Akshay, let me take three pictures. Within a few seconds, you will get a report on your WhatsApp, which shows the condition. And then it says, listen, looks like you're great, doing great, no worry. Or listen, looks like, you know, you need a few interventions. Why don't you walk into the QB clinic, we'll get a dentist to speak to you.
01:05:28
Speaker
That's how we sort of connect the AI model. That was our idea, We said, in healthcare, a lot of ecosystem exists in silo. For example, there's a med tech ecosystem. Amazing work is happening on the med tech side. Every day you will hear about somebody getting a CDSO certification. These ECGs have become very portable. These digital stethoscopes are there, digital blood pressure machine. Every day we hear, right?
01:05:50
Speaker
ah That is developing on its own and it's like a standalone ecosystem. Then you hear about the wearable ecosystem. Those are not medical grade, lot of consumer grade, but a lot of these people have now started talking. We are capturing your vitals, basically giving you some fancy gimmicky dashboards and people are getting it.
01:06:06
Speaker
Then you have this healthcare AI ecosystem where a lot of the screening kind of apps are getting. A lot of them are actually trained on synthetic data. That's beside the point, but it's developing on its own. And then you have the digital platforms like one of the names you mentioned where it enables delivery of services digitally, whether it's a teleconsultation, whether it's calling for a phlebotomist, getting medicines delivered, or even your EHR, medical records getting stored.
01:06:29
Speaker
Finally, there is a completely different exist healthcare ecosystem which has existed from forever, at the physical healthcare care ecosystem, hospitals, doctors. Nobody had got all these platforms to come and talk at one point. When we created theque the QoB platform, we needed the MedTech ecosystem because we wanted those devices to capture the vitals.
01:06:48
Speaker
right We needed the digital platform because the records had to be stored. We needed the physical ecosystem to come on to us because we could then share the information. so Slowly and slowly, because of the need we had and the problem we were solving, we created this whole connected ecosystem. And allowed on one side, we don't we don't work with variables too much, but because that's a very much urban phenomenon. But who knows, some days we if we have affordable things, making progress through it. It's very easy to plug it into our system.
01:07:18
Speaker
So because of that need and the problem we were solving, we got all these ecosystems. Eventually what we have done is on the demand side, we created a human touch, trust, high empathy model to our physical clinics, system, nurses, pharmacists.
01:07:32
Speaker
On the supply side, we allowed the ecosystem to come and participate in this massive opportunity because now they don't have to build stuff. The platform has everything built in. You can come and plug yourself into the building and you have access to a lot of patients.
01:07:46
Speaker
You know, ah a lot of people talk of AI taking away jobs, but I really think this is the this is how AI will transform us. Like people who are semi-skilled will be as good as somebody who is highly skilled because they are AI-powered. Absolutely. a You should see some of my swastya mitras. They don't even know it's AI product.
01:08:06
Speaker
yeah They think they're taking just images and uploading. It's it's an AI at play which is giving the report to their friend instantly. Yeah, the AI is truly, i think, I mean, if India leverages it well, it's job. Absolutely.
01:08:19
Speaker
Yeah. I love the conversation. Thank you much.