GoMedii Takes A Big Leap on Medical Tourism As the Demand for Quality Indian Healthcare Services Picks Up in Africa and Bangladesh

The full-stack platform brings a host of services right from discovery to post-operation treatments all under one roof in line with government’s “Heal in India” initiatives

Nigeria, Congo, Ethiopia have emerged as biggest African markets for India’s affordable health care services

Keeping in line with the government’s ‘Heal in India’ initiative, GoMedii, a fast-growing health-tech platform, aims to act as a digital enabler for quality and affordable health care for overseas patients, who come to India for medical tourism.

Started by Abhishek Chandel and Rohit Singh in 2018, GoMedii is a full stack digital platform that aims to leverage technology to provide healthcare to overseas patients, who are now preferring India for quality medical treatment that is 50-80% less vis-à-vis other developed economies.

With the government pushing forward for a national strategy and roadmap for medical and wellness tourism, GoMedii has emerged as a leading Medical Value Travel Facilitator (MVTF) that provides overseas patients a host of services right from discovery of the treatment to post-operation services. Working closely with the government, GoMedii aims to organise the highly fragment medical tourism industry by bringing all services under one roof.

Rohit Singh, Co-founder, GoMedii, said that the brand has been playing an active role as an MVTF in Africa, Middle East, Southeast Asia, and the SAARC regions that are the primary markets for medical tourism in India, with Bangladesh and Africa contributing a lion’s share of traffic.

“Government initiative of ‘Heal in India’ will strengthen Medical Tourism and would help the healthcare industry take a big leap. The need of the hour is a robust public-private partnership with MVTFs playing the role of a key stakeholder and drive the business by generating leads in different source countries,” said Rohit.

Rohit pointed out that Africa remains a largely untapped market offering great potential.

“The major performing markets that we see with huge potential to boost the medical tourism sector in India are the African countries like Nigeria, Congo, Ethiopia and more, hence, making the African continent a prime performing market for GoMedii,” said Rohit.

Abhishek Chandel, Co-Founder, said that empowering patients and their families with the right information remains the key and now GoMedii boasts a network of 100 plus hospitals providing quality and affordable treatment.

"We come first in the patient treatment value chain right from the hospital discovery phase and be with the patient in entire treatment journey through an ecosystem of 100+ Hospitals, 500+Doctors, partners, interpreters and pre-post treatment care,” said Abhishek.

GoMedii aims to bank on India’s quality and affordable healthcare as well as budget friendly allied services that make treatment costs 50-80% less vis-a-vis other popular medical tourism destinations like Turkey and Malaysia.

"Besides the significant cost factors, the high number of reputed workforce of the best doctors in the country, state-of-art hospitals, lesser waiting time for appointment, affordable tertiary services, and other medical infrastructure, make India most preferred destination for international patients. We plan to expand our reach across our prime performing markets in the world by empowering the patients and their families with the right transparent knowledge through a well-established partner’s-network,” said Abhishek.

With an aim to give a structure to the fragmented medical tourism industry in India, Rohit said that GoMedii is focusing on three key things – provide technology-driven healthcare solutions; empower patients with reliable information; formalize and give a structure to the medical tourism sector.

Patient data on GoMedii suggests that most of the African patients are coming to India for transplant surgeries, IVF treatment, knee replacements, and oncology treatment. Over the years, patients from Gulf countries have also preferred Indian health care with most of the traffic coming from UAE, Oman, Iraq, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia. Most of the patients from Gulf countries come to India for orthopaedics, cardiac, bariatric surgery, and cosmetic treatments.

Patients from Cambodia, Myanmar, Maldives, and Uzbekistan have started preferring India over Malaysia for cosmetic surgery, dental treatment, organ related treatments, and orthopaedic surgery.

GoMedii is a healthcare technology platform focused at In-Patient care that helps through the entire treatment journey from hospital & doctor discovery, treatment planning to pre-treatment & in-treatment at hospitals until the post treatment care. GoMedii is a facilitation engine which comes 1st in the patient treatment value chain and collaborates with all stakeholders of the ecosystem. We help patients at each step of the journey in getting treatment at established & accredited hospitals. We Are Technology Powered Healthcare Platform & Facilitation Engine Easing Out Patient Treatment journey.

Medical Tourism Startup Hospals Raises $3.5 Mn from Inflection Point Ventures, 9unicorns, Wavemaker & Kunal Shah

Hospals Team

• Hospals connects thousands of patients from all over the world to the best hospitals, clinics & hotels in India, Turkey, UAE & Thailand, to avail the most suitable medical treatments and accommodation in their budget.
• Hospals offers international health coverage to subscribers across Africa & Asia, enabling them to get cashless treatments in India & other countries.
• The company has grown 6x in last 6 months as more international patients move to their high quality, tech driven experience, post covid
• IPV has so far invested Rs. 326Cr across 107 deals.

Hospals, a cross border health benefits & travel platform that enables international patients to access healthcare across India, UAE, Turkey & Thailand, announced part raise of its Pre-Series A investment from Inflection Point Ventures, 9Unicorns, Singapore based Wavemaker and prominent angels like Kunal Shah, Sanjeev Mishra and Razorpay founders. 

Existing investor Venture Catalysts has also participated in the current round.

The funds raised will be used for expanding geographically to reach $900 mn in GMV, serving 1.5 million subscribers & patients to get quality medical & cosmetic treatments across the world.

The startup has already served over 22000 patients from 38 countries get medical advice, teleconsults and surgical treatments across over a hundred hospitals in its network. Its health benefits membership, called Hospals Assured, enables subscribers from Africa/Asia to get unlimited doctor teleconsults and free surgical treatments upto $15,000 across Indian hospitals.

Vinay Bansal, Founder & CEO, Inflection Point Ventures says, “Healthcare expenses which include treatment costs and travelling expenditure can be daunting for a family. Having a guided advisory from companies like Hospals can ease of the stress as their model is connect you with the best doctors and surgeons in their respective disciplines. They also provide translation & residential assistance close to the hospitals. Hospals sits at the crossroads where it is helping patients and medical professionals. Healthcare as a market opportunity is booming and with growth in insuretech, we are very bullish on Hospals and healthcare in general.”

Dr. Apoorva Ranjan Sharma, Co-Founder of 9Unicorns and Venture Catalysts, said, “India is one of the largest and fastest growing market for medical tourism on the back of affordability and accessibility of high-quality healthcare treatments. Hospals has been at the centre of expanding this market. We at Venture Catalysts are happy to have been its early backer and are now reinvesting in its growth story along with our commitments from 9Unicorns. Hospals has reinvented itself to cater to the rising demand from this sector by facilitating end to end services including providing medical loans to the patients. We are optimistic that Hospals would emerge as the most significant player in the crossborder healthcare segment."

Hospals was founded by Danish Ahmed. Obaidullah and Suneel Kapur. Suneel had earlier worked as the Group Sales head for Fortis Hospitals and Chief Marketing Officer at Radiant Group, recently acquired by Max Healthcare. Through his career he was instrumental in serving over a million patients from 120 countries for cancer, transplants, cardiac and other diseases.

Hospals uses its proprietary recommendation engine to find the best surgeons & cosmetic clinics for patients depending on their location, treatment & budget. Its network of over 400 Hospals Health Consultants across 30 countries provides local counselling and support to ensure a seamless experience for the patient.

“Hospals started with a single vision to provide Universal Health Coverage. Through Hospals Assured, International Telehealth and our concierge travel services, Hospals is enabling people across Asia & Africa to access world class healthcare. We’re rapidly expanding our network of hospitals and collecting data points across the spectrum to help patients find the best surgeons and clinics across Asia. We’re solving problems in accommodation, remittances and medicine delivery across the border. We’ll soon launch fintech services like medical loans & crowdfunding to help patients finance their treatments beyond insurance coverage, so that each human has access to the best healthcare globally” says Danish Ahmed, who Co-Founded Hospals after quitting his role as Vice President at Paytm.

Danish had earlier founded Yebhi.com (sold to Flipkart) and Shopsity (acquired by Paytm) before launching Hospals. The company had raised 10 crores in earlier investments from Venture Catalysts, Spiral Ventures and Innoven.

Medical tourism is a $78 billion industry globally and was growing at 25% CAGR before covid brought international travel to a halt. With millions of patients waiting for surgeries since the past 2 years and thousands of medical travel companies shutting operations during Covid, Hospals is rapidly scaling its operations to service this backlog.

Hospals was founded by Danish Ahmed. Obaidullah and Suneel Kapur. Suneel had earlier worked as the Group Sales head for Fortis Hospitals and Chief Marketing Officer at Radiant Group, recently acquired by Max Healthcare. The startup aims to address the deep gaps in medical tourism, health education and universal health coverage, by creating a tech driven brand, centered on the needs of patients across Asia and Africa.