Medtech firm Konsula catches seed funding from East Ventures

A new Indonesian health care startup Konsula announced earlier today it secured seed funding of an undisclosed amount from local VC firm East Ventures. The startup bills itself at the answer to the nation’s disparity in health care services. It acts as an online doctor directory, where users can browse to find the right doctor to match their needs and also book appointments through the site. Additionally, Konsula is a software that lets doctors and clinics manage their practices in a more systematic way, at “a fraction of the cost,” the startup claims.

The firm has three co-founders, Shinta Nurfauzia, Johannes Ardiant, and Ronald Wijaya, three recent Harvard and Michigan graduates who are all native Indonesians. Prior to this funding round from East Ventures, Konsula was a completely bootstrapped company.

“Indonesia’s health care sector is another big category that needs to be disrupted,” says Willson Cuaca, managing partner of East Ventures. “Konsula’s approach to solving [problems related to] discovery of health practitioners will help millions of Indonesians meet the right doctor.” Konsula has yet to launch in Jakarta. The firm is slated to be operational by the end of this month, however, and the co-founders say more than 500 doctors have signed up so far.

See: Media firm acquires Indonesian medtech startup to boost digital footprint“Our Konsula smart search is designed to connect patients with the most suitable doctors, which is possible due to filters such as price, location, specialization, schedule, [and more],” says Shinta, the firm’s CEO. “It enables users to book appointments and submit reviews at their fingertips. Konsula also offers […] software that provides doctors and clinics with [an] appointment scheduler and client record services. The two are specifically developed for the Indonesian health care sector. By helping doctors to optimize their practice, we believe we can help more patients.”

In terms of searching for and connecting with doctors, Konsula will compete with a few other players in Jakarta, namely Alodokter, Tab a Doctor, MeetDokter, and Dokter.id.

Despite existing online tools for connecting patients and health practitioners in the archipelago, Johannes says it’s still very difficult to find the right one. “In the case of well-known doctors in Indonesia, it’s so difficult to get an appointment with them—and most of them are expensive,” says Johannes. “So, although there are more than 160,000 doctors throughout Indonesia, we still don’t know where to go if we need a doctor.” He adds that more than 7,000 new doctors are licensed in Indonesia annually.

See: Indonesian health information portal Alodokter gets seed funding
160,000 is a drop in the bucket when pitted against Indonesia’s vast population. If what Johannes says is true, it means less than 0.065 percent of the population are licensed practitioners. One could argue that the problem to be solved is less related to a lack of tools for finding doctors, but rather, there simply aren’t enough licensed doctors in Indonesia.

Regardless, Indonesia has roughly 250 million people, many of whom have no access to health care services at all. The government is currently providing a locally regulated insurance program in an effort to guarantee every Indonesian citizen some degree of health service. “Now the key is to ensure that they can find the one which suits their needs,” says Johannes.

The Konsula team says they are still considering ways to monetize. Johannes says their first thought is to make the doctor directory and booking platform free, while implementing some kind of cost structure for the practice management software called Konsula Connect. However, Johannes says they haven’t quite nailed the money-making part down yet for this business.

That said, Konsula also claims to be looking into hospital records as an opportunity. Indonesian hospitals are required by law to store all of their patient data, and are only allowed to discard it if that particular patient hasn’t returned in the past five years. Nearly all patient data in Indonesia is inputted manually, says Johannes, which inevitably makes it more expensive to collect, store, and retrieve the data.

With that in mind, Konsula says it wants to also provide a solution for hospitals and clinics to store and manage patient records more efficiently.