IT stalwart Phaneesh Murthy to seed fund venture and be Executive Chairman
A team of five professionals today announced the launch of PM Health & Life Care (PMHLC), a company aiming to start an online market place, connecting multiple providers of healthcare products & services with consumers. The first step in the venture will be an online market place which connects chemists and druggists with consumers.
The family fund of Phaneesh Murthy has led the seed round of $3.2 million. In the venture, Phaneesh is going to actively play the role as Executive Chairman. The venture plans to raise its first round of capital shortly bringing the total invested amount in the company to about $8- $10 million.
Announcing the company formation, Murthy, Co-Founder and Chairman, PMHLC, said, “Despite its importance for consumers and society, healthcare remains a very fragmented market, beset with inefficiencies at multiple levels due to lack of scale and from a distinct slack in technology adoption. The proposed health exchange is an innovative model, bringing technology as the great enabler for facilitating well-informed healthcare access. The health exchange meets the latent need of the consumers, clinics, hospitals, diagnostic centres and doctors to make quality healthcare accessible and efficient to a large population.”
A health exchange operates as a platform to bring providers of healthcare products and services and consumers together. According to the PMHLC model, consumers’ demand will be routed through the exchange to the nearest partner-service provider. This will not only assure accessibility at all times, it will also give consumers the peace of mind in dealing with providers who share the exchange’s philosophy and vision. The company will only work with providers of goods and services who meet all regulatory and quality standards.
Hemant Bhardwaj, CEO, PMHLC, “We will be fully operational in a year’s time with the first solution connecting chemists and druggists to consumers across India. The marketplace intends to initially tap the universe of e-commerce savvy households with a distinct value proposition of ensuring availability of wide range of genuine drugs & health products delivered in quickest possible time while providing ease & convenience that comes with mobile & online shopping.”
The PMHLC founding team has around 125 person years of leadership experience in technology, pharmaceuticals, marketing and distribution. The founding team includes, apart from Murthy as Chairman and Bhardwaj as CEO, Umesh Naidu as Chief Operating Officer, Anil Bajpai as Chief Technology Officer and Harshit Singhal as Chief Finance Officer and Head of Strategy.
EH News Bureau