Srikanth
Breathe Well-being, a health-tech startup that helps people prevent, manage and reverse Type 2 Diabetes has raised $1 million in Pre-Series A round led by 3one4 Capital. Prolific angels investors like Ashish Gupta (ex-MD Helion Ventures, investor in Flipkart, MMT & naukri.com), Anjali Bansal (Founder Avaana Capital, Former Chairman Dena Bank- Bank of Baroda), Suhail Sameer (Group President BharatPe) & Stanford Angels & Entrepreneurs India (SAE India) also participated in the round. Silicon Valley based prestigious accelerator Y Combinator known for backing global companies like Airbnb, Stripe & DropBox and Meesho, Razorpay & Cleartax in India also invested in Breathe Well-being during its winter 2020 batch.
The Gurgaon based health-tech startup was founded in 2020 by Rohan Verma (ex-McKinsey) & Aditya Kaicker (ex-Accenture) who are 2nd-time founders in the healthcare space. Since its inception, Breathe Well-being continues to achieve a 30% m-o-m growth rate and has seen a 22X increase in its membership base. The team will invest the current fund raise to strengthen its coaching academy, build the core team, and upgrade its technology platform.
Breathe Well-being’s clinically proven digital program uses a personalised coach driven, community first approach through interactive gamification to help people with Type 2 Diabetes reduce HbA1c, lose weight and stop diabetes medication eventually.
Rohan Verma, Co-founder and CEO, Breathe Well-being says, “Breathe Well-being is attempting to address a complex problem beautifully which is seeing a high growth rate due to strong word of mouth. Our clinically proven program addresses 70 million diabetic people who feel that they have no choice but to stay on medications. This number is set to touch 130 million by 2025. We, at Breathe Well-Being, want to engage pre-diabetes and diabetes patients and help them manage/reverse their condition to lead a healthier life. The current fundraise comes at a crucial point in our journey as we are seeing significant traction both on the users and coaches side. The funds raised will help us grow our capabilities both from tech and coaches perspective and also enable us to scale exponentially.”
The Breathe Well-being outcome-driven digital therapeutics program is based on 3 pillars of coaching, community and curriculum. The year-long program is split across 10 levels. The program can be accessed via the Breathe mobile app that is available on the App Store and Play store. The company’s clinically proven program has helped 10,000+ members to lose weight, reduce blood sugar and prevent health complications.
Anurag Ramdasan, Principal & Head of Investments, 3one4 Capital, says, “Breathe Well-being is unique in its direct to consumer, community and coach driven, healthcare delivery model and we are firm believers of this approach to health care. Rohan and Aditya have shown amazing insights in building this company and their strong approach to first principles and fundamentals have us excited to lead their round. Breathe Well-being has a phenomenal team with deep expertise in healthcare, community and lifestyle management and we think are perfectly positioned in creating a healthcare revolution in the digital delivery space and we are super excited to be part of this journey.”
Given the raging pandemic currently, Breathe Well-being has decided to provide a complimentary extension of one month for all their members who are undergoing the program. Additionally, they have launched Covid Special Yoga classes for all their customers free of cost to help them with immunity and address Covid related symptoms, especially as they also have to focus on managing diabetes which is a complicated health issue when clubbed with Covid. The company’s major focus right now is to humanise the workplace and its biggest goal is to care for the team. Breathe Well-being has launched medical insurance and a mental wellness therapy program for its employees to help them deal with the Covid crisis and bereavement in their families.
India is the diabetes capital of the World with 150 million patients suffering from chronic lifestyle diseases such as Type 2 Diabetes, PCOD, thyroid and hypertension. It has been reported that 24% people across age groups are prediabetic. The company is on a mission to help 10 million Indians over the next 5 years to reverse and manage Type 2 Diabetes while building a trusted and loved community for people with chronic conditions.
