Japan-based M3 Inc Acquires Majority Stake in Bangalore-based Neuroglia Health

Japanese healthcare firm M3, Inc has acquired a majority share in Bengaluru-based startup Neuroglia Health, which provides web-based applications for doctors and medical students in India.

Neuroglia Health owns and operates a mobile app called 'DailyRounds' (fomerly known as Medengage), which enables case-based problem-solving for doctors. DailyRounds has raised a total of $500K in funding over five rounds from investors including Accel, Kae Capital and Microsoft Ventures, among others, according to the data by Crunchbase. Beenos Partners, which is also Tokyo, Japan-based investment firm, is also an investor in Dailyrounds.

Neuroglia Health also runs an another app called 'Marrow, which is a test-preparation platform aimed at post-graduate specialty courses in medical schools in India.

This move marks M3’s foray into case-based problem-solving community platform and medical test preparation business in India, in addition to its existing business Health Impetus Private Ltd. (HIPL), which is owned by M3 India, the Indian Joint Venture of M3 Inc, which currently runs an online portal that help doctors stay up-to-date with the latest research material, medical news, evidence-based medicine, practice guidelines, and expert articles.

“With this majority acquisition, M3 India will now be able to reach out to 450,000 doctors in India on a consolidated basis, while enhancing the utility and satisfaction levels among Doctors by leveraging the strengths of both platforms. It will also enable M3 India to escalate its marketing support and market research businesses to pharmaceutical and medical devices," said Amit Singh, chief executive of HIPL in a statement.



Founded in 2013, by Deepu Sebin, Nimmi Cherian and Priyaank Choubey, Dailyrounds was part of both GSF India and Microsoft Ventures accelerator programs and is inspired by Stack Overflow, a developers' tool. Like Stackoverflow, DailyRounds is a place where doctors can seek advice from others in their field. DailyRounds now has 300,000+ Doctors and 400 new Doctors join the platform everyday, according Linkedin company profile of Dailyrounds.

“We are very excited with this development. With the support of M3 we will be offer better services to the existing doctors. Further, we hope to bring in new doctors as well. The goal is to be largest doctor network in India, not just by registered numbers, but in terms of active users as well," added Dr. Deepu Sebin, chief executive of Neuroglia Health.

Established in September 2000 under the service name of So-net, with Sony Communications Network Corporation, M3 also intends to import services and technologies developed in Japan and internationally into India, such as job placement support services and AI applications, with an aim to build next-generation healthcare technologies in India.

Source - Livemint

DailyRounds Gets Funding from Accel Partners, Beenos, Powerhouse Ventures and Aksua Holdings

DailyRounds – a global network that enables Doctors to engage in sharing and learning medical content has announced undisclosed funding rounds led by Accel Partners with participation from Beenext, Powerhouse Venture and Akusa Holdings, Japan.

Doctors need to keep updated on the latest medical developments and treatment guidelines. Case based learning (clinical cases) is the best way to go about doing that. The traditional methods for case discussions are CME conferences and medical journals, but the cost and time doctors need to spend often prevent otherwise busy doctors from taking full advantage of those mediums. DailyRounds solves these problems by their simple and intuitive mobile app.

“The new funds will help us cement our leadership as the largest doctors network in India and also help us widen our reach in other countries where we have significant traction. We will also be adding more number of specialties”, said Dr. Deepu Sebin, CEO, founder and a physician himself.

Journey So Far

What started in 2014 as a personal project of Dr. Deepu has seen DailyRounds growing to be one of the most widely used medical app – from Syrian refugee camps to Harvard Medical School.

“ We are a social network for doctors, built by doctors. More cases are discussed on our mobile app than in all the medical colleges in India combined. Our app store reviews will substantiate the fact why doctors vouch for DailyRounds as the one app that they always keep on their phones.”Dr. Sebin said.

Doctors share and discuss unique and rare cases on DailyRounds. Each case gets a verified correct diagnosis within 24 hours of submission. This case library and discussions help doctors keep updated even after they have left the medical colleges. The DailyRounds library has replaced traditional medical journals, drug handbooks and pocket notes in many specialties. (These are typical content of a doctor's handbag that the company says they are replacing.)

“On average, a medical doctor takes 30 key decisions per day. It ranges from what drug to prescribe, when to do a surgery, what device to use to when to discharge a patient. We positively influence those decisions there by having a direct impact on healthcare outcomes. From Day 1 DailyRounds has helped Doctors provide better care”, Dr. Sebin explains.

Currently there are over 250,000 users on the platform, spread across the globe, with majority of the users from Indian Subcontinent. Primary care, Internal Medicine, Cardiology, Radiology and Emergency Medicine are the top specialties. There is a three level verification process for all the Doctors. This is to make sure only verified and approved Doctors will be taking part in discussions and case sharing.

DailyRounds is the highest rated Medical App (globally) - Rated 4.7. A product built completely in India, but adopted and loved by Doctors across the world.