After having raised $5 million in its seed round, Even, the Bangalore-based healthcare startup founded by Mayank Banerjee, Matilde Giglio, Alessandro Ialongo, has raised additional funding of $15 million to expand personalised and preventive care in India.
The new capital comes from new investors Alpha Wave and Aspada (Lightrock) which now join existing investors Khosla Ventures, Founders Fund, Lachy Groom, Palo Alto Networks CEO Nikesh Arora, CRED CEO Kunal Shah, and DST Global partner Tom Stafford.
Even was founded to simplify healthcare in India which poses unique challenges such as lower penetration of health insurance and fee-for-service care that puts a disproportionate financial burden on people.
India’s fee-for-service healthcare model effectively forces patients to go to the doctor only when an illness reaches a critical stage. In other cases, patients are advised by hospitals to admit themselves for 24 hours to become eligible for insurance payouts, which may or may not happen. Patients, hospitals, and insurers work in silos with different and misaligned incentives creating huge mistrust at each stage of care.
Even wants to bring back focus on patient care and build a trustworthy healthcare delivery model where a successful health outcome is also a profitable one.
Even’s highly qualified clinical team studies members’ unique health profile and lifestyle to develop personalised managed care programs. These programs target and manage risks early, before they become critical illnesses and require hospitalisation.
Each member gets a personal care team with doctors, specialists, and care managers on board 24×7 to recommend the best course of action whether it’s a specific disease (diabetes and PCOS), an elective health goal (quitting smoking, alcohol etc) or an emergency.
At an individual level, members have free, unlimited access to experienced doctors and testing, so they don’t have to worry about paying out of pocket. Members get healthy and remain healthy. Even doctors are not only prescribing ways to fight a small illness right now, they are planning lifelong care where members don’t get diseases 10 years down the line.
Matilde Giglio, Co-founder, Even says, “Upon onboarding and throughout a member’s journey, our doctors collect and study important information about members’ health and suggest ways to mitigate risks. Comorbidities like diabetes, high cholesterol, high BP, obesity are quite common in India, and are often uncontrolled due to reluctance in visiting a doctor and not getting health checks unless there are symptoms. Just to set more context about how important this is, 50% of users found out for the first time that they had diabetes during our onboarding health check-up.”
At a broader level, Even builds primary care programs using globally-vetted protocols to improve clinical outcomes. This helps Even reduce OPD costs (because healthier people need the doctor less) and IPD costs (reduced hospitalisation). Insurers are then more willing to cover a cohort whose health is meaningfully managed.
Because the end goal is to successfully improve clinical outcomes, members never have to worry about being undertreated. And since members are not paying out of pocket for each service, there is no incentive to overtreat/overcharge patients.
Matilde Giglio, Co-founder, Even, adds “For us, Even is about giving members access to complete healthcare and building trust like a family doctor. Right from preventive care to diagnostics to hospitalisation, our members will be assured of our support throughout their healthcare journey. We continue to stay committed to making managed care a reality in India and the support from our investors will help us improve our reach within the country.”
Even is ambitious about creating a blueprint for healthcare in India, where healthcare providers can achieve the best outcomes at the lowest cost without ever compromising quality of care.
“We are delighted to see the traction that the Even team has demonstrated since their launch in 2020. Even is a revolutionary model that integrates care delivery and financing, ensuring that members make the best health decisions for themselves with the support of high-quality doctors incentivized to deliver patient outcomes. We are very excited to partner with Even as they continue their journey of encouraging Indians to adopt healthy behaviours”, says Tejasvi Ravi, Healthcare lead at Lightrock India .
