Staying physically close to ones kin, especially in times of medical needs, may be the wish of every individual. But, it’s not possible all the time. What if you could not only stay connected, but also be able to predict the medical needs of your close family even if you are physically far away. Touchkin made this possible with its app - StayClose.
The Bengaluru-based predictive analytics startup aims to be a platform to predict medical needs of a person. Its application helps people track the health of their dear ones. It can be useful to those who may be abroad while their kin are in India.
Started in 2015 by Jo Aggarwal and Ramakant Vempati, Touchkin e-service uses smartphone sensors to identify when a person needs care. The machine learning platform identifies potential health issues as tracked by a smartphone. It will enable healthcare providers to know which of their patients need follow-up and make care more proactive, improving customer engagement, reducing costs and improving outcomes, especially for chronic illness and mental health.
For example, when a person is depressed, his/her smartphone will track changes in activity, communication and sleep patterns.
The startup recently raised $400,000 from a clutch of investors, including Alok Mittal (former India head, Canaan Partners), Amit Gupta (co-founder, InMobi), Anuj Srivastava (CEO and co-founder, Livspace), Himanshu Aggarwal (CEO, Aspiring Minds), Raghunandan G (co-founder TaxiForSure) and Puneet Agarwal (co-founder Money View).
“Our first investor Anuj Srivastava was the first person we reached out to with the idea, even before the company was incorporated. This was before the first slide deck had been made, a cold pitch made over Skype,” said Jo Aggarwal, co-founder of Touchkin.
“‘In fact, all of our angels got it quickly, because this is the kind of thing they would like to see exist, or set up themselves,” she said.
After having raised the initial $400,000 in the angel round, the company is now planning for another round of investment, and is in discussions with both strategic and venture capital investors, for a possible pre-Series A round later this year.
Aggarwal said that the funds will be used to expand the team, grow user base and run healthcare pilots in India and abroad for different cases.
The firm will initially look at depression and diabetes. “We want to catch this early and help people get medical care in time. This apart, Touchkin will also look at areas where symptoms are typically under-reported like elder care or sleep apnea,” said Ramakant Vempati.
“We are partnering and running pilots with doctors to be able to train the engine for their use. We are in discussions with both healthcare chains and health insurance providers in India and abroad,” said Aggarwal.
On the revenue model, said Vempati, “While the StayClose family care app is free, Touchkin plans to offer its predictive care platform to global healthcare providers, targeting the remote patient monitoring market which is expected to be $46 billion by 2017.