Healthcare innovators, entrepreneurs and investors come together on a common platform to pave the way for affordable and efficient solutions to improve healthcare delivery in India
Express Healthcare, a leading publication from The Indian Express Group, flagged off its first edition of UnicornNext, an initiative to drive innovation in healthcare and offer a platform for healthcare innovators, start-ups and investors to come together and network under one roof. It was held on December 11, 2015, at Express Towers, Nariman Point, Mumbai from 5:30 to 8:30 pm.
The event kicked off with a video clip of 19-year-old Harsh Songra, founder of Mychild App, who shared the highlights of his entrepreneurial story. His start-up story went viral when Sheryl Sandberg, COO, Facebook, blogged about his app, which is being supported by Facebook under its FBStart programme.
Welcoming the audience, Viveka Roychowdhury, Editor, Express Healthcare expanded on the concept of UnicornNext. She said, “In the past two years, we’ve seen some start-ups growing into $1 billion Unicorns, while others going bust into Unicorpses. Tech companies are laying off staff even while VC funding is flowing into tech IPOs. UNICORN NEXT is our quest to identify and encourage the next Unicorns, the start ups most likely to make it to the growing billion dollar club.”
The next speaker was Vipin Pathak, CEO & Co-Founder, Care24, a start-up which focuses on home healthcare. He spoke on the ‘Art of the Start’ and gave valuable insights on the aspects to be taken under consideration while launching a start-up. His advice was to choose to solve one problem of healthcare and be passionate about it.
Chayan Chatterjee, Co-Founder & COO, Lattice Innovations, and India Partner, CamTech, spoke on ‘Hack-a-thons: Learnings for the real world’ and their relevance in the world of business. He gave a simple formula to build and sustain start-ups, “Choose a problem-based approach, identify a minimum viable product, measure market risk and adopt market policy for sustainable growth.”
The next part of the event involved the healthcare innovators presenting their creations and explaining their application in today’s healthcare scenario.
The first innovator was Soham Ganatra, a student from Somaiya College of Engineering. He and his team have developed a chair which would help in offering a certain amount of mobility to paralytic patients as it operates on brainwaves and blinks. Next speaker, Dr Tina Dennis, from the Institute of Science presented her research on marine drugs which may prove to be very beneficial in treating non-communicable diseases.
The next presenter was Vishal Mishra, Founder of Platform X. His invention was an Eye Stick, a technologically advanced but very easy-to-use navigation system for the visually impaired. Rohan Sunder, another student from Somaiya College of Engineering, also presented his innovation — a gait analysis test which would be of help in physiotherapy.
The last healthcare innovator was Viraj Ranade, who alongwith his team has developed Ashioto, a digital footmat which is ideal for hospitals premises as it makes a note of the footfalls. Thus, it helps keep a track of when to clean the premises and aids in maintaining hygiene.
The next part of the event comprised mentors sharing their valuable insights with these budding talents. They lauded the innovators and took the stage to guide them on how to scale up their innovations and make them commercially viable.
The first mentor was Dr Aniruddha Malpani, an angel investor with stakes in several healthcare start-ups such as Plus91 — a health tech venture, PEAS — a healthcare information company etc. He stressed that there are three things to be considered in healthcare, i.e. human capital raised by healthcare entrepreneurs and innovators, financial capital provided by investors such as himself and lastly, social capital, referring to the impact created by the ventures.
The next mentor was Madhukar Sinha, Partner at India Quotient, a leading VC fund which has invested in healthcare start-ups such as Care24, Curofy, etc. His advice to attract funding was to identify a pain point, build a team that’s aligned with the objectives of the business and have a clear strategy to resolve the problem and achieve their goals.
Apoorva Patni, Director, Currae Healthcare, a chain of hospitals from the Patni Group, emphasised on the need for an effective pitch to attract investors. He said, “Take exclusive responsibility in anchoring important data points to draw investors’ attention.”
Dev Raman, Partner, Triton Investment Advisors, a renowned investment management firm was the next mentor. His advice was, “Idea is the first thing of a business. Once that is in place, you need to worry about why will customers pay you.” He advised that the customers should be the focus, if one has a sound strategy in place, the investors would be definitely interested.
Last, but definitely not the least, was Nidhi Saxena, Founder & CEO, Zoctr Health. “Start-up is not an option, it is a religion,” she said. She also advised the start-ups to focus on five things i.e. making an impact on the lives of millions, scaling up the business to reach out to a wide audience, ensuring that the business is commercially sustainable, leveraging technology to further progress, constantly innovating to stay ahead of the competition and get returns for your investors.
Some of the other esteemed guests present at the event were Vikram Vora, CEO, MyDentist; Dr Suresh Saravdekar, Medical Consultant (Pharma and Medical devices), MCGM; Rajesh Pednekar, Mentor and Investor, Start-ups & Innovative Ventures; Dr Ashwin Bonde, Parag Vora and CA Gokul Indani, Co Founders, Pulsewell; Amey Belorkar, Assistant VP, SIDBi Venture Capital; and Bharat Bhardwaj, Founder & Chairman, TopDoctorsOnline.
The last part of the evening was a networking session wherein innovators and entrepreneurs got a chance to directly interact with the investors and share their ideas and inventions. The speakers and guests alike were all praise for the event and opined that it was a great platform to encourage healthcare innovation and a positive step towards helping create a sound ecosystem for the growth of healthcare start-ups.
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Express Healthcare would be conducting its next edition of UnicornNext shortly. Watch this space to know more about it.
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