Digital financial services portal Policybazaar, run by EtechAces Marketing and Consulting Pvt. Ltd, has delayed its initial public offering plans as the company had secured over $200 million in fresh funds largely from SoftBank Group, senior company official said on Monday.
EtechAces, which currently operates Policybazaar and Paisabazaar.com websites, is venturing into healthcare services by launching a third business currently called DocPrime.
The company will invest over $100 million in two years towards the new business, which will offer medical consultations, both offline and online, apart from subscriptions or specialized health insurance products to customers.
“A large part of our business already comes from healthcare. We want to tap into that existing user base and offer them a network of doctors and other services,” said Yashish Dahiya, co-founder and chief executive at Policybazaar.
Policybazaar gets 20-25% of its business from selling health insurance products.
For its new business, the company plans to co-create health insurance products and hire about 1,000 doctors. To be sure, the company currently works as a marketplace of insurance products and does not offer its own insurance.
However, under the new business DocPrime the long-term goal is to have its own health insurance products, said Dahiya.
“It will target the out-patient department market. We will have tie-ups with clinics, diagnostic centres and hospitals to launch OPD-specific insurance products.”
The company is trying to replicate the success of Ping An’s Good Doctor, a Chinese healthcare services firm that went public in Hong Kong in April and raised $1.1 billion.
Ping An’s Good Doctor is also backed by Policybazaar’s new investor—SoftBank and is currently the world’s largest doctor consultation business.
With this new business EtechAces will compete with online healthcare businesses like Practo and 1mg.
The new product is expected to go live by early August.
