The healthcare sector witnessed many changes due to the COVID-19 outbreak. As consumers and providers sought ways to safely access and deliver healthcare, there was massive acceleration in the use of tele-health or digital health consultation.
To deliver consumer-centric and affordable tele-health consultations, investor-turned-entrepreneur Revant Bhate and Dhyanesh Shah launched digital healthcare and wellness startup in 2020.
“We realised that something should be done in the healthcare space in the country. We observed a significant trend toward consumerisation of healthcare, with elective healthcare becoming more of a consumer proposition than a category-level proposition,” says Revant.
The Mumbai-based startup runs two digital health platforms – Man Matters and Be Bodywise.
The former, launched in May 2020, is meant for men and caters to issues related to hair loss, sexual health, skin, weight, and hygiene. “The core purpose is to help men who are not able to speak out and are unable to open up about their problems,” Revant says.
Be Bodywise is a platform for women and was launched in May 2021. It caters to issues related to hair loss, ageing, PCOS, intimate care, and acne, among others.
Mosaic Wellness raised $10 million in seed funding in December 2019 pre-launch from Sequoia Capital India, Elevation Capital, and Matrix Partners India, alongside marquee angels such as Kunal Shah, Jitendra Gupta, and Jaydeep Barman to kickstart the platform.
How does it work?
The digital clinic is a full-stack health and wellness platform. It includes communities, health experts, educational healthcare content, and a diverse portfolio of products, for both men and women.
Revant says, “Users can access the platform for educational content and knowledge around collective health, and connect with medical experts, health coaches, and dieticians. They can also be a part of communities where they can interact with others about elective and preventive health and investments.”
Users can book an appointment with doctors by selecting their health concerns, answering a few questions, and picking a time slot according to their convenience. The platform informs the user about the doctor’s availability within 30 seconds.
Post consultation with the doctor, users get their customised treatment plan on WhatsApp. They can directly buy concern-based products or nutritional supplements on the startup’s platform or from Amazon. The supplements are priced from Rs 200 onwards.
The startup claims to source ingredients from regions where they are known to be highly efficacious, and the products are formulated by in-house doctors. It also claims to serve across 18 to 20 thousand pin codes in terms of products and services.
The team
Prior to launching his own startup, Revant worked in the investment banking sector. Post that, he joined Rebel Foods (earlier Fassos) as an entrepreneur-in-residence.
Team Mosaic Wellness
Post his stint with Rebel Foods, Revant got the opportunity to work in the VC ecosystem. In 2018 and 2019, he led K-Start, the seed fund arm for Kalaari Capital.
“The Bengaluru ecosystem really opened my eyes to different kinds of problem statements that exist in the consumer domain,” he adds.
Revant met Dhyanesh in Oracle Financial Services in 2005. In 2006, the latter quit his job to pursue MBA from IIM-Ahmedabad. This motivated Revant to do the same who pursued MBA in 2007 from IIM-Kozhikode.
Later, Dhyanesh joined McKinsey & Company as an engagement manager. He was also associated with Eight Roads (VC arm of Fidelity Growth Partners) for six years.
Business model
Mosaic Wellness offers free audio and video consultations with doctors. However, for expert consultations and diagnostics, the platform charges variable fees. Additionally, for the customised treatment plan on WhatsApp, users have to pay a certain fee based on the health concern and the doctor.
“We realised that to make the science behind wellness more accessible to all, we need to have experts to guide us on this journey. We joined hands with a group of medical experts and doctors who were passionate about changing health habits and cared deeply about their craft,” he says.
Customised doctor consultation charges start from Rs 500, and Mosaic Wellness pays the doctors a fixed salary and keeps the rest as service charges. The startup also offers free consultation with a general practitioner.
Mosaic Wellness also offers a monthly and yearly subscription model. The founders claim that with subscription, users can avail a 40 percent discount on the products and supplements.
At present, the platform has over 150 in-house doctors and nutritionists, and they record around one lakh tele-health consultations every month.
“The elective healthcare system in India is very expensive, and that is one of the main reasons people shy away from these services. If you just talk for five minutes to a medical expert, you can reduce your stress and anxiety. Our job is to reduce the size of this anxiety bubble,” Revant says.
The startup aims to target a digitally native audience – people aged between18 to 36 years, for both Man Matters and Be Bodywise.
“We want to be the health coach for both men and women and help them develop healthy habits,” Revant adds.
Man Matters has an Android application and is soon planning to launch its platform on the Apple App Store.
The founders did not reveal any such plans for the Be Bodywise platform.
The market and USP
Due to digitalisation, the healthcare segment is able to address the gap of accessibility to specialist doctors while reducing the burden on tertiary-care hospitals, particularly in rural areas and lower tier cities in India.
According to ResearchAndMarkets, the digital healthcare market in India was valued at Rs 252.92 billion in 2021 and is expected to reach Rs 882.79 billion by 2027, growing at a CAGR of 21.36 percent between 2022 and 2027.
Many players like , , , DocTree, Docprime Technologies, , and CallHealth are already working in the digital healthcare space to make health and wellness accessible to end users.
Speaking about how the startup stands out from the competition, Revant says, “We are building platforms that simplify personal health with the help of cutting-edge technology and customer-first products.”
He adds that for Mosaic Wellness, engagement and behaviour building will always remain the number one challenge to solve. “We started with a vision to make wellness accessible and affordable for Indians and have been able to build a very purpose-driven team, keen to solve this,” he adds.
“Diagnostics is also a challenge because the collection of samples is not easy beyond the top 50 cities. But diagnostics is still a nascent vertical for us and we plan to make it more accessible across the country soon,” he says.
Mosaic Wellness claims to be having over one million monthly users at present.
The startup claims to have served over 1.2 million users through consultations in the first two years, with a monthly repeat rate of 60 percent.
So far, Man Matters has served about one million men across key therapeutic areas such as dermatology, hygiene, sexual health, and nutrition, and Be Bodywise has served about three lakh women.
The startup has clocked over $20 million annualised revenue in FY 2021-22 across both the platforms.
Funding and plans ahead
In November 2021, the healthtech startup raised $24 million in Series A round of funding. The investment round was led by Sequoia Capital India with participation from existing investors Matrix Partners India and Elevation Capital.
According to Revant, the startup is not planning to raise funds for the next 18 months.
However, for the next one and a half year, Mosaic Wellness is planning to expand the user base of Man Matters from one million to five million, and Be Bodywise from 300k to four million, respectively.
The startup also plans to expand its app user base to 80 percent, up from 25 percent at present, over the next 18 months.
