Bangalore-based Kenko Health, a healthtech startup has raised USD $12 M as a part of its Series A round with Sequoia Capital India as lead investor. The round also saw participation from Beenext, Orios, 9Unicorns and Waveform as existing investors. 

Kenko Health provides a subscription-based service that covers health expenses across OPD and hospitalisation, in collaboration with Insurance companies. As part of its OPD coverage, Kenko covers costs of doctor visits, medicine expenses, diagnostic tests, and more. These have been designed for middle income households in Tier 2 cities, who are not covered by standard health insurance schemes, either by their employers or otherwise. Monthly payments, instant benefits, wide coverage and competitive pricing have helped Kenko Health with gaining market share quickly. 

The investment will primarily be used to acquire customers, develop new products and build a stellar team. Kenko will add categories such as dental, mental health, at-home care, sexual health and many others to its OPD coverage.  

Kenko Health had previously raised $1.7 M as a part of its pre-Series A round with BEENEXT and Orios as co-lead investors, and also saw participation from 9Unicorns and Waveform ventures. 

Founded in 2019, Kenko health has already reached over 50,000 users across India and is on its way to gaining the trust of 2.5 lac new users by the end of March 2022 by offering these services to its members in over 40 cities across India including Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Nagpur, Indore, Lucknow, Vijayawada, Kochi, Mangalore, etc. Kenko offers easy-to-use plans, ranging from a modest Rs. 299 per month for young singles all the way up to Rs. 1999 a month for families of four, with increasing benefits for each tier. It also offers healthcare plans for large businesses, SMEs, individuals, and families. 

Kenko provides comprehensive plans focused on OPD along with IPD coverage from an insurance company as a part of the membership benefits. It uses a tech-first approach to fill in the gaps in claims settlement by ensuring that expenses are paid in full without deductions and also paid out in advance, just before hospital admission. 

Aniruddha Sen, Co-founder, Kenko Health, said, “We are proud and pleased to have our investors help us grow. Their expertise and network will catapult us in the right direction. The new funds will help us expand our channels and to ramp up growth in the coming months. We hope to add both affordability and accessibility to quality healthcare in India with our tech-enabled solutions. The increasing number of first time health insurance buyers in the market states that people are looking for comprehensive health solutions and will not hesitate in buying it as long as it brings some real value and is well within their budget.” 

“Since the onset of the pandemic, people have realised that the conventional health insurance packages remained unutilized in the longer-run as they are not inclusive of OPD expenses. Almost 70 percent of their lifetime healthcare expenses are incurred on the outpatient department costs which include doctor fees, medicine expenses, diagnostic tests and even non-prescription products and several services. At Kenko Health, we bridge this gap by providing an overall protection to our customers through complete financing as well as assistance.” said, Dhiraj Goel, Co-founder, Kenko Health.

“Managing health care expenses needs to be reimagined in India. Out of pocket settlement of healthcare expenses in India is as high as 62% compared to 11% in the US and 36% in China. Kenko Health is at the forefront of this change by offering affordable all-inclusive healthcare subscription packages with a seamless tech-first claims process. We are excited to partner with Kenko Health in this journey”, said Abhishek Mohan, Principal, Sequoia India.

Dirk Quakebeke, Partner at Beenext said, “Aniruddha and Dhiraj have built the most customer centric healthcare offering in India. Kenko’s scale and product suite is nothing shy of amazing with the capital they have raised yet keeping plans accessible and affordable to most. We are fortunate to have partnered with such visionary industry experts from the very beginning.

Anup Jain, Managing Partner at Orios Venture Partners, said, “Kenko has identified a huge white space in the healthcare finance space, overlooked by incumbents for years with innovation in OPD as well as a refreshing take on health benefits settlement. The founders have scaled the business quickly in a short period of time and we expect them to secure a large footprint in India within the next few years.”