7Med in talks for Series B Funding – Covered by VCCircle
VCCircle , India’s leading source of financial news, covered 7Med & its efforts to secure Series B funding.
Link to the original article published in VCCircle: https://tinyurl.com/v9d8mah
Read the complete article below.
“Dialysis clinic chain 7Med India Pvt. Ltd, which had received investment from a European company two years ago, is looking for fresh capital to grow in a market that is highly unregulated but has recorded some private equity action.
Vikas Verma, co-founder and director at 7Med, told VCCircle the company wants to raise Rs 90 crore ($13 million) in its Series B funding round.
Talks are on with potential investors, he said, but didn’t disclose their identities and other aspects citing confidentiality issues.
Gurugram-based 7Med was founded in 2013 by Verma, Rakesh Thakur and Mayank Sharma. It had received funding from Russian dialysis firm Nefromed two years ago. Nefromed had invested through its India arm Dicopa.
The three founders were earlier associated with German dialysis services provider Fresenius Medical Care AG, which has a significant presence in India as well. Fresenius had acquired Tata Capital Healthcare Fund-backed dialysis services company Sparsh Nephrocare in 2016.
7Med, which ties up with hospitals to set up its clinics within their premises, had around five centres at the time of Nefromed’s investment. The number of centres has now risen to 21.
The company claims it conducts 7,500 treatments a month, and aims to have up to 100 centres in three years’ time. Verma said the company is looking to enter India’s eastern and northeastern regions next year and then establish its presence in the southern region.
Verma also said the company will launch its first standalone centre in Delhi by March as it seeks to build on the traction it has gained. A standalone store costs around Rs 15 crore, nearly ten times as much as a clinic within a hospital, but the company feels its own centres would help it build its brand.
The company has also won its first project to work with the government-backed All India Institute of Medical Sciences hospital in Delhi. This could help boost its presence in the country.
The government in its Budget for 2016-17 had noted that India gets about 2,20,000 new patients of end-stage renal disease every year and that the annual expense burden on each patient is more than Rs 3,00,000. Hence, the government had proposed to start a National Dialysis Services Programme to provide renal-care services in district hospitals.”
By: Joseph Rai, VCCircle