Lybrate gets $10.2M in Funding to Expand Mobile Healthcare Services in India

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Tiger Global, a venture capital firm in India recently raised $10.2 million for Lybrate, a medical service start-up. Lybrate is already breaking down the barriers to care in India by connecting millions of patients with doctors using a web-based platform and app for both Android and iOS. More patients will be able to get diagnoses from credible doctors via Lybrate versus from a pharmacist, which is common in rural areas in India. Users can anonymously post questions to doctors, search for doctors in particular specialties, make appointments, save their patient records, and even send alerts to family members during medical emergencies. Most services are at no charge to the user unless they choose to enter a one-on-one virtual dialogue with a doctor for a small fee.

Lybrate’s CEO, Saurabh Arora says that the goal of Lybrate is to increase access to doctors and quality health care information for India’s billion-plus population. Arora who previously worked for Facebook created the mobile app for users to scroll through health advice based on their specific health needs similar to Facebook’s model but solely for health information. Lybrate provides access to more than 80,000 doctors from numerous disciplines.

The startup plans to spend the $10.2 million on hiring more staff, developing its technology, and reaching more patients. A similar startup, Practo landed $30 million in funding earlier this year to expand its health search portals in Asia already with 120,000 doctors and 4 million searches per month. With 100,000 daily users and half a million app downloads since their January 2015 launch, Lybrate is carving the way towards revolutionizing health care delivery in India and will likely inspire more innovative models of care in the healthcare industry.

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Alison Killian is a recent graduate of Grove City College who majored in Business Management and minored in Biology Studies. She is a contributor to Medical Groups and passionate about all facets of healthcare. She plans on continuing work in the healthcare field especially in management. She is very interested in healthcare innovation and finding ways to improve the current system. She hopes to go back to school in a few years to earn a degree in medicine.

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