Indian healthcare startup Practo buys hospital management tool for $12M

Indian healthcare startup Practo today announced that it acquired Insta Health Solutions, a hospital information management tool also from India. The deal is said to be worth US$12 million.

Insta is used for automating processes such as scheduling, registration, billing, electronic medical records (EMR), ward and bed management, diagnostics, and insurance. It also has tools for lab equipment integration, operating theater, pharmacy, and inventory management.

Practo earlier launched a partner program in which hospital management startups from around the world integrated with Practo’s tools. Insta was one of the first few partners to come on board.

Seven-year-old Insta serves 500 clinics, hospitals, and diagnostic labs in 15 countries including India, Southeast Asia, Middle East, and Africa. Some of Insta’s key customers are Cloudnine, Deepam Hospitals, MyDentist, and DaVita. International clients include Skyline Hospital in Manila, NMC Group of hospitals in UAE, and Karen Hospital in Kenya.

Insta will operate as a separate division and founder Ramesh Emani will remain in charge. Before starting up, Ramesh worked at IT consulting firm Wipro as president of telecom and product engineering solutions.

Global expansion

Besides product, the acquisition also brings a global customer base and team to Practo, which is on a rapid expansion spree. Practo’s flagship product is a search tool that helps find doctors and book appointments. The acquisition adds doctors from Insta’s database of clinics.

Practo is one of the heavily-funded startup in India. It recently secured US$90 million in series C led by China’s Tencent.

Practo claims to list 200,000 healthcare practitioners on its service and enable 10 million searches a month. It has 1,500 employees on the payroll.

The startup has expanded to 35 Indian cities and four countries. It plans to reach 100 Indian cities in 10 countries spreading across Southeast Asia, Latin America, Middle East, and Eastern Europe.

Practo has previously acquired FitHo, a preventive healthcare app which offers advice on nutrition and exercise. It also acqui-hired Genii, an outsourcing firm that has been helping ecommerce, financial, and media firms build up their online portals.

“This is the third of several acquisitions we’ve been evaluating for simplifying and digitizing healthcare around the world. We want to transform the hospital industry globally and provide a great consumer experience by digitizing records, removing wait times and queues, and simplifying payments,” says Practo founder Shashank ND.