Raising Series B funding to strengthen technology; may offer at- home service soon: Ziffi CEO

Ziffi.com, earlier known as Docsuggest.com, has changed its name to enable users to book not only healthcare service, but also giving them an added advantage of book wellness services effortlessly. The company has launched its mobile app a month ago and has received sudden surge in its bookings.

Realising the impact of new facility being adopted by the consumers, Ziffi.com is planning to deliver on-demand home services. In an exclusive conversation with WI Bureau, Shantanu Jha, Founder & CEO of  Ziffi.com unveiled his plans to tap potent areas of beauty & wellness space and much more.

Conceptualization of Ziffi.com
With an aim to provide convenience to customers looking for location based health needs, we started a doctor’s discovery portal known as DocSuggest.com in 2010. With DocSuggest.com, we realized the concerns faced by consumers in the wellness and the beauty sector. Hence, as a solution, Ziffi.com was born in 2014. It was conceptualized to provide a 360 degree solution to those looking for booking appointments in the beauty, wellness and healthcare sectors.
   Today, by realizing the immense opportunity in beauty and fitness space, Ziffi.com has become a one-stop-solution for booking appointments in the beauty and wellness sector on-the-go for tech savvy Indian consumers. Capitalizing on the untapped market, in a short span, Ziffi.com has become India’s largest and most comprehensive wellness booking system for location based services to find salons, stylists, spas and doct
or appointments all on one platform.

Surge in demand with App launch
Ever since, the demand for the appointments in the beauty space has grown at a rate of 80-90 per cent month-on-month. With the recent consumer app launch, we have noticed the appointment booking exponentially rising 27 times over and about95 per cent of the bookings come through the app.

USP of Ziffi.com
Ziffi is the first and biggest player to bring together wellness professionals like salons, spas, stylists, doctors and diagnosticcenters, all in one common platform.
   Currently, we are in talks with the investors to raising SeriesB funding. In 2014, Ziffi had received its Series A investmentsfrom Orios investors. It is also funded by angel investor Vishal Gondal, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, GOQii; Sanjay Parthsarthy, Founder and CEO, Indix Internet India; Taher Khorakiwala, Founder and CEO, MeemAin Capital and Rajan Anandan, Managing Director of Google India.

Strategy to utilize funds
In 2014, when Ziffi raised Rs15 crore in series A funding from Orios Venture Partners, the funding was used to expand its coverage in Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore and Hyderabad. Now, the company is in talks with the investors for raising Series B funding. These funds will be utilized to expand its network, strengthen technology interface and design, and part of it would be invested in marketing and brand building exercises.

Investors’ stake
Yes, investors hold equity. Stakes are confidential.

Major competitors in wellness marketplace
In India, there are multiple players who offer online services in the specialized segments like beauty and healthcare. While Practo is a major player in the healthcare segment, companies like Purplle.com and Vyomo also operate in beauty and wellness space.

Strategize to gain competitive edge
We are focused to spread awareness through word of mouth. Ever since the app was launched, 75 per cent of customers have come through referrals. The product also focuses on ensuring high frequency catering to all verticals of wellness. The broad range of services also encourage our customers to use our services more often than vertical players who are marred with low potential of repeat usage.

Geographical presence
Ziffi.com has a tight presence in four cities including Mumbai, Delhi/NCR, Bangaluru and Hyderabad. This fiscal, capitalizingon the huge market potential in Tier II & III cities, we plan to expand to 25 more cities and accordingly scale up the technology. In addition, teams at Ziffi are also working on adding newverticals to Ziffi which may include on-demand home servicessoon, which would an addition to the existing portfolio.

Existing database
The portal has an existing database of 1.4 million users, on the online platform and the recently launched mobile app. The company, on its platform, has over 8000 salons, stylists and spas. In addition, about 21,000 doctors and 8,000 hospitals, pathological and diagnostic centres are also listed on this platform.

Revenue model
As aggregators of the health and the wellness space, the online booking and discovery platform provides salons, spas and stylists with an application on which they can manage appointments is coming through Ziffi.com portal. The application also helps them to run their loyalty and reward programmes and discounts. While the consumers are not charged for the services, on the health bookings side, Ziffi.com charges a fixed feeper booking from the service providers.

Business roadmap ahead
Our focus is on scaling the business across 25 geographies in coming year. Ziffi helps salons and spas to manage their own business through our partner application. Through the same, we are working on strengthening our network in existing cities with focus on stylist level booking.

Ecommerce in Wellness space
The growing presence of aggregator services and Ecommerce players in beauty and wellness space has enabled professionals to reach out to larger audience pool, leveraging the offlinepresence to build a successful online brand, bring additional business at lower cost and improve customer experience. Forinstance, Using Ziffi, many of the beauty and healthcare professionals and service providers have expanded and grown theirbusiness in extremely low cost. Providers get visibility into the likes and dislikes of their target customers and can accordingly modify their offerings and pricings. Ziffi also helps serviceproviders to focus on increasing their repeat customers by helping them grow their revenue per customer.