Pristyn Care has raised a fresh $96 million in funding led by Sequoia Capital and Tiger Global at a valuation of $1.4 billion, adding to India’s unicorn count that stands at over 40 so far this year. Investors flush with capital are rushing to back tech startups, which are seeing a surge in user base as more local consumers embrace digital services. The series E funding round also saw participation from Winter Capital, Epiq Capital, Hummingbird Ventures, Trifecta Capital and a clutch of angel investors, including Cred founder and CEO Kunal Shah, Zomato co-founder and CEO Deepinder Goyal.

The latest investment more than doubles the healthcare startup’s valuation. The firm had last raised about $53 million from investors in April at an estimated valuation of $550 million. The startup’s total fund tally now stands at about $175 million. Founded in 2018 by Harsimarbir (Harsh) Singh, Dr Vaibhav Kapoor and Dr Garima Sawhney, the Gurgaon-based company specialises in secondary care surgeries. Pristyn Care has built a network of over 400 expert surgeons and more than 800 surgical centres across 40 cities to cater to patients in need of advanced surgeries. The firm’s services covers over 50 diseases.

In a competitive market that is dotted with a spate of healthcare startups, Pristyn Care claims to have differentiated itself with its 24X7 personal care buddy service wherein a coordinator is allotted to each patient to handhold him through the entire medical process, starting from fixing an appointment with doctors to post-surgery follow-up.

“Covid has brought in a lot of appreciation for technology. Today, 95% of patients who go through Pristyn have electronic medical records. All our doctors use our in-house doctors’ app and they process the prescriptions digitally. About 30% of our patient consultations happen online today and about 40%-50% of the patient discovery happens online. We are almost in line to do about 100,000 surgeries next year,” co-founder Harsimarbir Singh tells Fortune India. “We had an opportunity to raise another $50 million in this round but we decided to postpone it as we felt we will not be able to utilise it faster. Capital is not a problem for us. We have sufficient capital in the bank,” says Singh. At some point, the company would want to foray overseas, Singh adds.

The company will deploy the fresh capital to add to its bouquet of services, expand into new disease categories, and augment its product and technological capabilities. The startup is firming up plans to broaden its network to 50 cities and towns and more than 1,000 surgical centres by March 2022, the firm said in a statement issued on Wednesday.

“A fairly large number of patients from small towns have to travel, sometimes hundreds of kilometers to seek quality surgical care in nearby metro cities. We aim to bridge this accessibility gap in the surgery space and take superior quality surgeries to patients in tier two and three cities,” explains co-founder Dr Garima Sawhney.

Pristyn Care claims to have grown by five times since January 2021 and is eyeing profitability in the next 12-18 months.

The Indian healthtech market is estimated to touch $5 billion by 2023 from about $1.9 billion in 2020, growing at a CAGR of 39%, according to a joint report by Praxis Global Alliance and IAMAI (Internet and Mobile Association of India) published earlier this year. “Covid-19 increased the demand for technology-based solutions to increase the efficiency and reach of the healthcare system,” analysts said in the report.

pristyn care funding

Healthcare startup Pristyn Care is 42nd unicorn of the year; valued at $1.4 billion