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Mumbai-based healthtech company FitterFly has raised a total of $4.5 million. In 2017, the startup that specialises in digital therapeutics had raised a very small pre-seed round of $400,000. It followed this up with a $1 million seed round in 2019, and closed a funding round of $3.1 million led by Fireside Ventures in March 2021.

Arbinder Singal, Co-Founder and CEO, FitterFly, says the startup is witnessing a monthly growth of 20-25 percent, with a monthly enrollment of around 800-1000 patients. In the last two months, the company has been focusing extensively on the B2C segment where it noticed “huge intent”.

“It’s interesting that our company started digital therapeutic services in December 2019 and the pandemic hit in the next three months. Our numbers – 12,000 patients now – have been reached during the pandemic,” he says.

The current focus is configuring the core digital therapeutic engine that will support multiple health conditions. FitterFly plans to raise another round of funding towards the end of FY21, eyeing $10 million towards November/December. This money will go towards developing the core DTx engine, which will require huge amount of investment. The other areas of focus are automating the core DTx engine, using AI for predictive analysis, and scaling up on B2C segment.

The company aims to generate a revenue of $2 million by March FY22.

“Our revenues are scaling up and things are looking good. We have enough money in the bank for almost a year and a half,” Arbinder says.

A study of FitterFly’s 10,000 patients in the last one-and-half years revealed that almost 30-35 percent of patients were distressed due to lack of time and guidance from doctors. This is where digital therapeutic systems come into the picture by catering patient needs that go beyond primary healthcare.

Existing gaps in the healthcare system cannot be filled only by doctors, medications, hospitals, and tests.

FitterFly believes a patient requires more than the usual diagnosis-treatment procedure.

Arbinder says the healing process is facilitated by the digital therapeutic system, which fulfils the gap and gives necessary outcomes. “It is a kind of help, an algorithm or a buddy on the phone that is available to the patient for helping make those changes essential for good outcomes,” he says.

The digital therapeutic system is growing in India because of factors such as limited availability of doctors, the pandemic situation that is keeping people away from hospitals, gaps in achieving desired health outcomes, and availability of 4G and good internet services.

Arbinder says diabetes is the primary area of their focus, with segments such as Type 1 diabetes or pregnancy with diabetes. The company has also started running pilot programmes for pregnant women, girls with polycystic ovarian syndrome, and resistant weight gain.

“In the next year we will start working in the space of hypertension and heart health. A couple of years from now, we will start supporting people with cancer through the treatment,” Arbinder says.