Vietnamese healthtech startup secures seed funding in KK Fund-led round

Med247, an offline-to-online healthtech startup in Vietnam, has secured an undisclosed amount of funding from Singapore’s KK Fund, a venture capital firm focused on seed-stage internet and mobile startups across Southeast Asia as well as Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Jin Hian Goh, former senior executive for Singapore’s Parkway Healthcare Group, also invested in the round.

Photo credit: Med247

Med247 operates its own clinics in Vietnam and a mobile app for patients to make appointments, seek online consultation, access medical records and lab results, and later on, get e-prescriptions.

“Coming to our clinic, with four specialties offered under one roof, is no longer foreboding,” said CEO and co-founder Tuan Truong. The company also intends to integrate with insurance companies to bring costs down and improve efficiencies, he added.

Truong decided to establish Med247 because of the rising demand for basic healthcare in Vietnam. Healthcare spending in the country is estimated to increase to almost US$20 billion in 2020 from US$16.1 billion in 2017, according to a report by KPMG. However, Vietnam has only 72 doctors per 100,000 citizens, compared to Singapore’s 230, according to a 2016 World Bank report.

“We’re in an era of change. Med247 strongly believes that the offline-to-online healthcare delivery method will become the global norm in the next two to five years, and we in Vietnam are well-placed to benefit from this change,” Truong said.