ShopDoc is an Indian healthtech start-up that entered the UAE market last month, has secured $1.36 million in seed funding from UAE-based investors, according to a top executive from the company.
The super-specialty hospital app for patient referrals and smart doctor deployment services will use the investments for regional expansion in the Middle East.
“We’ll use the seed funds to build the region-specific integrated healthcare platform to accommodate local practitioners and healthcare providers to offer committed service to patients across the GCC,” Shihab Makaniyil, founder and chief executive officer of ShopDoc, told Arabian Business.
Makaniyil, however, declined to reveal the names of the UAE-based investors.
“We are not serving doctors and hospitals yet in the UAE as we need to meet certain regulatory compliances,” he said.
Makaniyil said the start-up has set an ambitious target of expanding within the UAE to all emirates in the next three-to-four months and to all the GCC markets in the next six-to-12 months.
“Funding is no issue for the expansion. We have other challenges like regulatory compliances and logistical issues,” Makaniyil revealed.
The Kerala-based start-up, which expanded into the UAE in its maiden foray into the international market, planned to mainly target the Indian diaspora for its growth plans in the Gulf region.
Makaniyil said the venture has been getting overwhelming responses from Indian business communities, organisations and investors since expanding its services into Dubai.
“Frankly, the responses so far have exceeded our expectations,” he said.
The three specialised services ShopDoc launched in the Gulf countries include MobeedCare family care, an on-demand patient care service to look after the complete hospitalisation needs of the family members of expat Indians in their home country; the ‘U OK?’ service, a virtual mental health support clinic to provide personal mental health consultations for Indian expats; and the ‘FFounders’, a customised diet and fitness programme designed for the expatriate Indian business community in the Gulf region.
Makaniyil earlier told Arabian Business that a significant number of international patient enquiries the start-up received daily are from the Gulf region, mainly from the expats hailing from Kerala.
“Also, the majority of patients we serve in India have got some immediate family members living in the Gulf countries who are often very concerned and confused. So we found it imperative to extend our services for them,” he said.
He also said all three co-founders of the start-up were Dubai residents before for a long period of time, and therefore they genuinely understand the healthcare needs and the importance of helping the expatriate community.
ShopDoc was among the 52 Indian start-ups which participated at this year’s GITEX, and one of the 20 start-ups mentored by the Kerala Startup Mission (KSUM), the nodal agency for entrepreneurship development and incubation activities in the state.
So far, ShopDoc has obtained a subscription customer base of more than 200 hospitals, 3,575 doctors and 21 lab chains in its first-year of operations.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by The Finance World staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
