Portea Medical Announces Rs. 48 crores funding from Accel Partners and Ventureast

Largest Series A venture capital investment in a home healthcare company in India underscores Portea’s leadership and growth prospects

Portea Medical, India’s home healthcare pioneer, today announced that it has received a combined Rs. 48 crores in Series A funding from venture capital firms, Accel Partners and Ventureast.Portea will use the funding to fuel its growth in 2014 and beyond as it looks to grow both organically and via acquisitions. Portea will grow to a further six Indian cities in addition to the four (New Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Chennai) in which the company’s high-quality, home healthcare services are already available.

“We are delighted to have Accel Partners and Ventureast as our partners. The quantum of funding is the largest ever Series A VC investment in a home healthcare company in India; we believe this development is a striking endorsement of Portea’s leadership and growth prospects in the rapidly expanding home healthcare sector in the country,” said Meena Ganesh, co-founder and CEO of Portea.

“The funds will help us strengthen our offering even as we accelerate our expansion across India in the coming months. We will continue to invest in advanced diagnostic and remote monitoring technology to support our clinicians as they deliver a range of in-home healthcare services,” she said.

Following the development, Mahendran Balachandran, Partner at Accel Ventures, and Venkatadri Bobba, General Partner at Ventureast, will join Portea Medical’s Board of Directors.

Portea’s patient-centric, high-quality services come at a lower cost than what is available under the current system in India. Portea clinicians, who have to pass rigorous hiring standards, currently handle around 2000 home visits a month providing geriatric and palliative care for chronic patients. Technology is a key building block of Portea - using cloud-based and clinically-proven mobile health systems to accurately monitor vital parameters such as ECG, BP, temperature and O2 saturation, in the comfort of a patient's home, resulting in improved outcomes.

The home healthcare market in India, currently estimated as a $3 billion a year opportunity, is driven by the increasing prevalence of chronic diseases, an aging population, and the need for better quality post-operative and primary care. Today, chronic diseases account for the majority of deaths in India (53%) and there is a sizable elderly population that is in need of routine home healthcare visits; by 2025, one in every five Indians will be a senior citizen highlighting the need for quality home healthcare.

Meena and K Ganesh established Portea along with Dr. Manjusha Anumolu, a MD (US Board Certified) in Internal Medicine with 20 years of practice in US and India. Meena and Ganesh’s foray into India’s healthcare sector follows a string of previous successes. Portea is Ganesh’s fifth venture, preceded by four successful green field ventures and exits – the most recent, TutorVista, which was sold to Pearson for $ 213 MM (around INR 1329 crore at current exchange rates).

Portea works with hospitals, insurance companies and individuals to improve health outcomes by providing a continuity of care in the home setting from doctors, nurses, physiotherapists, nutritionists, counselors, and home health aides. The company has five tier-1 corporate hospitals as partners, a network of hundreds of referring physicians all over India and handles around 2000 home visits a month.

Portea is working with leading hospitals and insurance companies to build understanding and establish the concept of in-home healthcare in the country, which is an already tried and tested model in developed countries including the US and the UK.

Website: Portea Medical

A detailed interview with the founders is coming up shortly.