Hospital tech firm Medico catches a case of seed funding from East Ventures

Image from Mayapada Hospital

Earlier today, Indonesia-based hospital management software (HMS) startup Medico announced that it closed a seed funding round from venture capital firm East Ventures. The deal size was undisclosed. Medico is still in development phase, with plans to officially launch in the second quarter of this year.

The startup is co-founded by Grace Tahir and Jonathan Sutantyo, two individuals with a combined 30 years of experience in the healthcare industry. Grace is a relative in the family-owned conglomerate Mayapada Group, where she is the director of Mayapada Hospital. This is not her first foray into tech entrepreneurship, however, as she also co-founded PilihDokter (now Dokter.id) in 2014, a platform that connects people with doctors and offers health and medical advice.

As one of the archipelago’s big families, the Tahir name itself is an institution in Indonesia. In addition to Mayapada Group, Grace’s father is the majority owner of the license to publish Forbes Indonesia. Jonathan, on the other hand, is the former head of the ICT division of Mayapada Hospital, and current COO of a firm called Silikon Digital Indonesia.

See also: Better access to healthcare for Indonesians as Pilihdokter gets funding from RingMD

Hedging bets in healthcare

According to a 2015 Frost & Sullivan report, the Indonesian healthcare sector is expected to triple from US$7 billion in 2014 to US$21 billion in 2019. East Ventures is most certainly hedging its bets.

“Healthcare potential in Indonesia has been underserved for the longest time,” says Willson Cuaca, managing partner of East Ventures. “Bad user experiences in the hospitals and clinics have [been] reported in the news once a while. We believe Grace and the team have the expertise to nail this problem and bring healthcare service to the next level.”

East Ventures also invested in Indonesian medtech startup Konsula, a firm that acts as an online doctor directory, where users can browse to find the right doctor and also book appointments through the site. Interestingly, Konsula also bills itself as a software that lets doctors and clinics “manage their practices in a more systematic way.” This could potentially raise questions about whether East Ventures backed two companies that may indeed be competitors.

Cuaca tells Tech in Asia this is not the case. According to him, the two firms are quite different from one another, despite both playing in the healthcare niche. “Konsula is for clinic bookings, and is a doctor directory, while Medico is a hospital enterprise resource planning software. Medico includes management tools for the pharmacy, bedding, and more.” He adds that healthcare is a big space, and there are many verticals startups can get into.

Medico team

See also: DNA-testing startup gets funding injection from Lippo-backed VC, enters Indonesia

Experience as an asset