How an Indian fintech firm is unlocking elective healthcare

This article is a part of Startup Spotlight, a series that features young, up-and-coming startups.

Image credit: Timmy Loen

During their previous venture, the founders of CarePay kept hearing the same story from senior doctors across India. Their patients were consistently delaying important treatments.

After speaking with over 200 patients, the team confirmed it was a liquidity problem, as most elective care is not covered by insurance.

😟 Problem

In India, a majority of elective healthcare procedures like IVF, lasik, and dental work are not covered by insurance. Patients must pay the full cost upfront, creating a significant financial barrier. This results in over 60% of middle-income patients delaying or forgoing treatment.

Traditional financing options are often inadequate. Personal loans carry high interest rates. Credit cards and buy now, pay later (BNPL) products have strict limits and low approval rates, especially for those with informal incomes.

💡 Solution

CarePay is an AI-powered platform embedded in clinics that helps patients pay for treatments in monthly installments. The goal is to remove the upfront cost barrier at the point of care. Its features include:

• Instant approvals for zero-cost monthly installments, with decisions made in about 42 seconds.
• A multi-lender marketplace that aggregates financing offers to achieve higher approval rates of around 40%.
• Healthcare-specific underwriting that uses treatment type and clinic data to assess risk, keeping non-performing assets below 1%.

Photo credit: CarePay

📊 Market size

India’s healthcare market is estimated at US$370 billion. The elective treatment segment, which is largely self-funded, represents an opportunity of US$40 billion to US$60 billion.

A bottom-up analysis suggests a potential annual financing market of US$13 billion to US$15 billion. This is based on over 100,000 specialty clinics, with each serving roughly 180 eligible patients per year at an average treatment cost of around US$720.

🤝 Team

• Gaurav Gupta. Co-founder and CEO. Previously built a US$10 million healthcare business and architected a large-scale digital health platform in India.
• Nupur Khandelwal. Co-founder and COO. Chartered accountant (AIR 18) and former audit of KPMG.
• Nikhil Salkar. Co-founder and chief product officer. He has 10 years of experience building large-scale consumer products.

🚀 Traction

• Achieved an annualized run rate of over US$9 million.
• Grew 7x in nine months, with monthly disbursals increasing from about US$530,000 to over US$3.7 million.
• Maintained non-performing assets (NPAs) at less than 1%.

🏆 Competition

💰 Financials