STARTUP SATURDAY

Mykare, hospital chain sans clinics: Kerala youth’s startup aims to be Uber of healthcare

Kochi: In 2019, Senu Sam found himself in the quandary of his lifetime. Life had placed two options before him. It was not at all an easy choice. Either he should move to the UK with his wife and eight-month-old daughter or stay back in India, chasing his startup dream about which nothing was certain at the time.

Senu had already completed his marketing stints with a few big corporate firms and tried his hands at entrepreneurship.

However, it was the time when he had struck his big idea in which he was ready to invest all of his energy and experience. All that he wanted was time, and money to execute his plan. His wife came to his rescue: Dr Neethu Mariam Joy, who had secured admission to do her post-doctoral research in London, chose to play the proverbial ‘woman behind the successful man’.

She told her husband she was ready to move to the UK with their toddler and manage things on her own. “We are ready to sacrifice two years of our life for your dream,” she told him. There Senu had the first investment for launching Mykare Health, a healthcare startup which is spread over 12 cities in south India now.

Earlier this month, the startup based at the Kerala Startup Mission (KSUM) campus at Kalamassery, Kochi, raised $2.01 million (around Rs 18 crore) in a seed round which saw participation from investor majors including OnDeck ODX - US, Avaana Seed, Huddle, Endurance Capital, F Health, VeritasX, Stanford Angels, Phoenix Angels and Ajit Mohan. However, it did not happen overnight. Before the big endorsement, Senu had to face rejection from around 80 people.

Cofounded by Rahmatulla TM and Joash Philipose along with Senu, Mykare Health is a company that is building asset-light, affordable, and a standardised hospital network focused on delivering quality healthcare experience to India's middle-class segment. “At this stage, our aim is to build a hospital network without owning even a single clinic,” Senu told Onmanorama, explaining the scope of a company which can bridge the information as well as business gaps between hospitals and patients.

A place for planned surgeries

Mykare helps people undergo elective surgeries – planned but not optional procedures – in an affordable way. Once a patient registers with Mykare, the company offers all-round care to that person, starting with counselling from the doctors. The company suggests the hospital and doctors from its curated list and offers end-to-end care, which includes free pick-up and drop, assistance to process insurance and post-procedure care. The company has tied up with around 150 hospitals. It has already arranged nearly 500 surgeries. The hospitals and doctors are selected based on strict parameters. Senu’s experience of working with Apollo Hospitals, Gleneagles Global Hospitals and MGM Healthcare has helped him in understanding the nuances of the industry. He also has a master’s in healthcare management.

However, it was not his academic or industrial exposure that triggered the idea of Mykare. Instead, it was a very personal experience he had to undergo that opened his eye to the gravity of the problem which he is now trying to solve. “In 2018, my father had to undergo a surgery in a medium-sized hospital. It was only then I recognised the magnitude of hurdles faced by patients due to the operational inefficacy of the hospitals and fragmented treatment journey offered by them. This includes the identification of right doctors and hospitals, long waiting lines, getting transparent treatment pricing, managing insurance process and addressing the fear to undergo a surgery,” he said.

Data published by Lancet and Niti Aayog on the problems faced by the Indian middleclass while accessing quality healthcare also improved his understanding of the situation. “I was convinced that this is a real problem which needs a solution. That time I was already running an IVF treatment centre in Hyderabad in partnership with a doctor-friend. Once the idea of Mykare struck me, I opted out of the firm. I also found that in a business, the scope of scale-up was limited unlike in a startup,” he said.

An unforgettable rejection

The beginning of Mykare was not at all easy. Senu’s story has its share of emotional breakdowns too. “Once I went to meet a potential investor. Ten minutes into my presentation, he had to go out and asked me to wait for a while. Only after one hour and a half, I was told that he had actually left the place. I cried throughout the day. But then I realised that there was no bigger rejection than that incident awaiting me. I kept searching for funding,” he said. Senu started the company in Chennai in 2020. However, the same year, he shut it and moved to Kerala. It was reopened in Kerala in 2021.

“Many people had discouraged me from moving to Kerala saying it would be difficult to run the business here. But my experience has proved otherwise,” Senu said thanking the institutional support, including that of the KSUM. Business became easier for him after Rahmatulla and Joash came onboard. Senu recollected how he struggled to hire and retain his first set of employees in his humble office at Padamugal, Kochi. The company now has 92 staff, including four doctors. It’s planning to expand to 20 cities in the next six months.

Revenue model

Mykare’s revenue comes from its association with hospitals; it charges no fee from hospitals. “Eighty per cent of hospitals in the country are individual entities which are not part of any big brand or chains. They also face a trust deficit due to lack of branding. We help them overcome the trust deficit if any and channel patients towards them. The patients also benefit because they get their procedures done at a cheaper rate compared to where they may usually go for it,” Senu said.

Startup craze

Mykare is not Senu’s first startup venture. He had launched a teashop chain, named the Great Indian Chai, back in 2016. “I became interested in founding a startup after reading articles on such ventures in news media. Then I came across a programme called Startup Leadership Programme which I wanted to attend when I was in Chennai. One has to be a startup founder to attend that event. Hence I started the tea shop chain. Later, I sold it to another company as I realised that healthcare is my strong area,” Senu, who does not have any entrepreneurial background in his family, said. His father was an NRI and mother a homemaker.

Senu’s wife, when she decided to leave for the UK, wanted him to build something that he can proudly show their child when they return. With Mykare, Senu just did that. Neethu is now a mother of three after the birth of twin boys Luka and Mika recently. Not just that, she herself is now a startup founder with her own AI company. Now that’s another story altogether perhaps for another occasion.