Healthcare startups are witnessing a surge in demand and a spurt in funding activity, similar to edtech platforms, which outperformed all the sectors among startups.

E-health platform Practo Technologies registered 600% growth in online consultations since the lockdown began on 25 March, with 70% of all users being first-time telemedicine users, while 45% were from smaller cities.

“Health-tech startups in e-health, remote healthcare, and online medical supplies space have seen high growth in the post-covid world,” said Aryaman Tandon, practice leader, healthcare, Praxis Global Alliance. E-pharmacies have played an essential role during the crisis in making drugs available to consumers, as social distancing norms were key to contain the infection, he said.

Teleconsultations at Bengaluru-based on-demand healthcare service Mfine have grown 3-4 times since March-end. “We now have more than 500 hospitals on the MFine platform with over 3,000 doctors. We added nearly 250 hospitals in the last three months,” said Prasad Kompalli, MFine chief executive officer and co-founder.

MFine also launched a covid-19 assessment tool on its app, which has been used by over 50,000 patients, and records 10,000 transactions per day.

“Covid reinforced MFine’s vision that healthcare services should be accessible on personal devices any time from anywhere,” added Kompalli.