Healthtech startups are revolutionising India's Ayushman future with innovation and disruption

DEV KHARE, the San Francisco-based partner of India-focused venture capital fund Lightspeed, has of late noticed a surge in the number of healthtech startups in India. Gone are the days when there were just 10-15 healthtech startups among the 3,000-odd Indian startups Lightspeed evaluated annually. Today, there are many more potential fund seekers in the segment. “In the last six months, we must have seen about 50 healthtech firms”, says Khare, adding, “I don’t know why, but something is happening (in this space)”.

The most plausible reason is the post-pandemic acceptance of digital, tech-driven services by the government, industry and society, which has created opportunities for new digital and tech-driven businesses. 5C Network, a Bengaluru-based healthtech startup that runs an artificial intelligence-based radiology interpretation platform, illustrates this.

Launched in 2017, 5C Network’s platform became an essential tool in the initial assessment of lung damage for coronavirus-infected patients as doctors scrambled to manage the pandemic in 2021. As Covid-19 cases surged, over one million chest X-rays and HRCT Thorax scans got read and interpreted using the 5C platform.

Today, 5C is a go-to platform for radiology services. Four of India’s top 10 hospitals are now using their product Bionic (a suite of AI products that can look at the scan, segment organs, measure them, detect pathology and write a draft report) in the radiology department. “We are connected to over 2,500 hospitals and diagnostic centres across India where Bionic is used and are doing 200,000 cases a month”, says Kalyan Sivasailam, co-founder & CEO, 5C Network. “AI in diagnostics is happening and it’s creating an impact.”

Global consultancy Bain & Company estimates India’s healthcare innovation market at around $30 billion in FY23, accounting for 15% of the overall healthcare market. Healthtech accounted for roughly 25% of the healthcare innovation market, having more than doubled from about $3 billion in FY20 to $7 billion in FY23. The healthtech market is split between consumer-facing solutions (telemedicine, e-pharmacy, e-diagnostics and wellness) and enterprise-facing solutions (B2B e-commerce and SaaS-based hospital, clinic and pharmacy management solutions).These startups, numbering more than 10,000, have made India an innovation hub. According to Bain & Co, India is poised to become a $60-billion opportunity by FY28.

The fact that some of the leading healthtech startups by revenue in Fortune India’s startup special are Redcliffe Labs and Healthians, diagnostic chains with a big digital thrust, and Cult.Fit and Mosaic Wellness are wellness platforms, validate Bain & Co’s observations.

Noida-based Redcliffe Labs claims to be India’s fastest-growing omnichannel diagnostics service provider across 200 cities through a network of over 80 advanced labs and more than 2,000 collection centres. “In FY21 revenues were about ₹13 crore, this year, we’ll touch ₹420 crore. If the industry is growing at 15% and established players at 10%, we will grow at least 30% CAGR in the near term”, says founder and CEO Aditya Kandoi.

Kandoi credits Redcliffe’s growth to a business model which focusses on 4As — awareness, affordability, accessibility and accuracy. “Do not consider us a diagnostics company. We have invested in creating awareness about disease risks. Today 2.5 million users come to our website every month to read our health blogs, or see videos, which gives you questions around diagnosis… Some utilise our diagnostic services. We are 40% cheaper than incumbents and have carried out 7.5 million tests since 2021. We did 4.5 million tests in 2024-25,” says Kandoi.

Redcliffe also provides value-added digital services. “We give a free report consultation with every diagnostic test. All reports are smart AI reports. In plain language you will know what the parameters are. We believe 90% of problems can be taken care of by diet and lifestyle. We give recommendations. Our advisors spend 20-25 minutes with every patient to make them go through that report. It’s our differentiation”, he explains. The company expects to double revenues in three years, and touch ₹1,000 crore by FY28. “From FY27 onwards, we will be profitable, too,” he adds.

Healthians — that stands for Healthy Indians — is yet another new-age digital first diagnostic player leading doorstep health test services. Its customer base grew 70-80% annually during the pandemic, and 30-35% since. “We are a preventive healthcare firm. Timely diagnostic tests reveal many alerts”, says Deepak Sahni, founder and chairman, Healthians. Unlike its traditional peers, the company’s services do not end with test results. It helps customers follow up triggers visible through test results and send reminders for further tests. “Once we get the report, we say now we have got a base value of your reports, we will analyse it over a period of time, tell you to redo the test if there is anything abnormal,” says Sahni. Healthians has 30 labs across India.

Curefit Healthcare offers fitness services and products through its two brands, Cult (formerly Cult.fit) and Cult.sport. Founded in 2016, it gives online classes and personalised solutions at fitness centres and partner gyms. Cult.sport product range features high-quality sportswear, versatile at-home workout equipment, bicycles, and nutraceuticals. Meanwhile, Mosaic Wellness offers three different digital platforms — Man Matters, a digital health app for men, Be Bodywise, a digital wellness platform for women, and Little Joys, a digital platform and support system for parents to help their kids remain healthy.

Disruptive models

Innovative business models within established businesses such as diagnostics and wellness services are not the only areas driving growth of healthtech startups. Disruptive products are also changing the landscape. Traya Health, for instance, established in 2019, is trying to disrupt the $12 billion anti-hair loss solution market.

Traya built its stack of tech, people and formulations, including online diagnosis, formulations, a hair care team of coaches and doctors. “We have about 25 products. The customer starts with an online head test with questions being asked by dermatologist, nutritionist and ayurvedic practitioners to understand their energy levels, age, etc. We get photographs of the head, and prescribe customised products. The biggest value addition is understanding that hair loss is not just about hair. It is important to understand what is happening inside your body”, says Saloni Anand, co-founder, Traya Health.

The company claims people who underwent Traya treatment were 3x better than those on minoxidil, the most commonly used allopathic medicine for hair loss. “Total downloads of our app so far are 2.1 million. In the last five years, around 10 lakh people have used Traya”, says Anand. The company saw revenues increase from about ₹65 crore in FY23 to ₹236 crore in FY24. Anand expects to close FY25 in the range of ₹300-400 crore.

Mumbai-based Qure.ai, meanwhile, has developed AI algorithms that can diagnose lung cancer from chest X-rays. It is commercially deployed in India and several developing countries to detect tuberculosis, but its ability to detect lung nodules from normal x-rays is serving a big unmet need in the U.S. too. “About 40% of U.S. medical legal lawsuits are because of missing lung cancer cases on chest radiology exams. We have the strongest FDA clearance for detecting lung nodules in chest X-rays through AI in the U.S. Out of every 1,000 chest X-rays that we process, we are able to find one new lung cancer patient for that hospital system. There are probably around 70 million chest X-rays being performed every year in the U.S. There is a huge possibility of finding new lung cancer patients which save lives, generate new avenues for the hospital, and help Qure.ai grow”, says Ankit Modi, founding member, Qure.ai.

The company is not stopping at incidental lung cancer detection. “We are taking care of the entire journey. We have a product called qXR for chest X-ray, which looks at incidental detection. Once suspicious nodules are identified, they put the person in a screening programme where they are asked to come and get a CT scan, every 6-12 months. We have a solution which helps measure whether the nodule has grown. Once the cancer is confirmed through biopsy, and treatment begins, it can measure whether it is effective. This happens on Qure.ai’s platform, so it’s basically a workflow solution embedded with AI. The entire lung cancer journey in the hospital will be managed on the Qure.ai platform”, says Modi.

Pharma companies are sensing the merit of partnering with Qure.ai. AstraZeneca is funding Qure.ai’s algorithm usage for early detection of lung cancer patients in 40 countries. It has a tie-up with Merck to develop a similar business model there.

If venture capital interest in a startup indicates the promise it holds in terms of scaling up, strategic investment of established corporate firms in startups ascertains that potential. The 34% stake Laurus Labs holds in Mumbai-based ImmunoAct and the recent acquisition of Karkinos Healthcare by Reliance Industries illustrate this trend. In the case of ImmunoAct — the company which launched India’s first indigenous chimeric antigen receptor CAR-T cell therapy using CAR-T cells (which act as drug and kill specific cancer cells in the patient’s body) for blood cancer — the growth numbers support this. The startup recorded revenues of ₹11 crore in FY24 after starting commercial operations in December 2023. In the last nine months (April-December 2024), it had ₹48-crore revenue and ₹11-crore profit. “We have infused our drug in 250-odd patients. We have MoUs with more than 75 hospitals across India (to administer this treatment)”, says Rajat Maheshwari, CFO, ImmunoAct, the first Indian company to develop this therapy for chronically ill blood cancer patients.

Karkinos may not be profitable at the moment, but it’s cancer screening programmes — the phygital screening method — and the role it plays in further investigation, treatment, or palliative care for cancer patients are pioneering efforts. Karkinos’ major differentiation is its virtual command centre that acts as a central disseminator of information and guidance and keeps all treating clinicians and ground staff connected to the system.

The next few years are likely to witness the emergence of new solutions, companies, and profit pools driven by cutting-edge technology adoption.