Apollo Hospitals announced a seed fund for healthcare startups in India. The announcement came at the 15th edition of Bio Asia 2018 – Asia’s biggest life sciences and healthcare conference, held in Hyderabad, Telangana.
Sangita Reddy, Joint Managing Director of Apollo Hospitals in an interview with Telangana today said, “The total Seedfund investment size will be from $50 million to $100 million. Initially we will invest a token amount from $5 million to $10 million. We are running the accelerator part of the activity. A range of startups are approaching us which are in Healthtech and science-tech.”
One of India’s largest private hospital chains, Apollo Hospitals is first to introduce robotic surgery in India.
Apollo Hospitals will sign a formal memorandum of understanding with IBM to leverage its artificial intelligence capabilities of IBM Watson.
Last December, Apollo Hospitals had announced that it is setting up an accelerator and innocation hub to mentor startups in the healthcare space. The innovation hub was said to be launched in Hyderabad, on the campus of Apollo Hospitals.
As per Nasscom report, healthcare tech segment has witnessed 129% increase in funding from $70 million in FY17 to $160 million in FY18. In Hyderabad alone the total investment in healthcare startups are $11 Million.
This month, Hyderabad- based preventive healthcare startup CallHealth has raised about $5 Mn from Bennett, Coleman and Co. Ltd. Last July, an another Hyderabad-based healthcare startup Nemo Care was announced winner of Israel’s Start TLV Competition.
Last year, Hyderabad-based T-Hub startup accelerator tied-up with pharmaceutical major Novartis Healthcare Private Ltd (NHPL) to launch a joint programs that would benefit Health Tech startups from across segments.