HealthXCapital launched Emerging Asia’s first healthcare-focused early stage VC fund, according to a media release sent on Thursday.
Backed by Apollo Hospitals, Jungle Ventures, Eight Roads Ventures (the proprietary investment arm of Fidelity International), and other private investors, early stage venture firm HealthXCapital aims to fuel healthcare innovation in Asia’s emerging economies.
Healthcare Has Not Kept Pace
The region has experienced one of the world’s fastest growths stories but healthcare has not kept pace. We believe that HealthXCapital can foster healthcare innovation in Asia in order to improve patient outcomes, access and affordability in our core demographies, said Suneeta Reddy, Managing Director of the Apollo Hospitals Group.
HealthXCapital has launched a $25 million fund to provide smart, connected capital to healthcare startups focused on emerging markets in South Asia and Southeast Asia.
Perennial Challenges
The firm invests and works intensively with healthcare startups to augment their commercialisation and bring accessible socio-economic benefits to Asia’s healthcare ecosystem.
Asia faces perennial challenges such as underdeveloped infrastructure, affordability of treatments, lack of proactive healthcare and opaque data management. While healthcare expenditure is growing fast, it still continues to lag. Large gaps remain in the Asian healthcare systems, Reddy added.
Ripe For Disruption
These gaps are also driving strong demand for technology in the $517 billion opportunity in 2018 as projected in a recent report published by Frost & Sullivan.
Our aim at HealthXCapital is to help modernise a sector which has long been ripe for disruption. We want to grow the best domestic and global healthcare technologies by helping them rapidly scale across emerging Asian markets, said Seemant Jauhari, Partner at HealthXCapital.