The Arrival Of Home Healthcare On D-Street

“India is experiencing a remarkable surge in home healthcare services with the rapid growth of the elderly population and prevalence of chronic diseases. This trend reflects a shift towards personalised and convenient care, ensuring patients can receive the medical attention they need while staying in the comfort of their own homes,” said Meena Ganesh, Co-founder and Chairperson, Portea Medical.

The leading home healthcare player of the healthcare industry, Portea Medical will soon make its debut on both, the Bombay Stock Exchange and the National Stock Exchange under its parent company’s name Healthvista India. And this feat can be seen as the arrival of the home healthcare industry on the centre stage, with Healthvista India becoming the first company of the sector to offer an Initial Public Offering (IPO).

The company will be looking to raise approximately Rs 1000 crore from its IPO with a fresh issue of equity shares worth Rs 200 crore and an offer for sale (OFS) of up to 56,252,654 shares worth Rs 800 crore as part of its impending IPO.

In its IPO bid at the Indian stock exchanges, the company will seek inorganic growth initiatives, while also looking to fund working capital requirements in its pharmaceutical company Medycompany biz Pharma, purchase of medical equipment and pay back certain debts incurred by the company over the years.

Founded in 2013 by its three Co-founders, Meena Ganesh, Ganesh Krishnan and Vaibhav Tiwari, the Bengaluru-based healthtech company offers various services such as out of hospital clinical care, companionship and attendant services, home diagnostics, and telemedicine among other services.

Speaking to BW Businessworld, Meena Ganesh, Co-founder, Chairperson, Portea Medical stated, “India is experiencing a remarkable surge in home healthcare services with the rapid growth of the elderly population and prevalence of chronic diseases. This trend reflects a shift towards personalised and convenient care, ensuring patients can receive the medical attention they need while staying in the comfort of their own homes.”

Ganesh further pointed out that this also means that the sector is becoming more competitive, thus maintaining a leadership position requires strategic planning and adaptability. “At Portea Medical, we always strive to maintain our leadership position in this segment through several key strategies. We firmly believe that patient safety and maintaining trust is the foundation of the healthcare ecosystem,” Ganesh stated.

In its Draft Red Herring Prospectus (DRHP) filed with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), Portea revealed that for fiscal year 2021, the company clocked a revenue of Rs 130 crore which it said is double in size compared with its market competitors such as Healthcare at Home and Apollo Home Healthcare.

The company presently claims the biggest market share in the Indian home healthcare industry which stands at 21 per cent. The healthtech company is present in close to 40 cities in India, employs around 4,000 people and has partnerships with over 63 hospitals. As per the financials filed by the company till fiscal year 2021, Portea has shown a consistent improvement in narrowing its losses and slashing its expenses to almost half of what it was three years ago in the fiscal year 2019.

Industry Outlook

The home healthcare industry is being recognised as a sunrise sector and presently comprises 2 per cent of the overall healthcare industry with industry reports pegging the growth rate at over 17 per cent CAGR, expecting the industry to expand to USD 21.3 billion in size by 2027 from USD 6.03 billion in 2021.

“Around 3-4 per cent of the market size is in the organised sector today. While the whole market is growing at about 17 per cent CAGR, the organised sector is growing at more than 30 per cent of CAGR because patients have realised that home healthcare starting from primary care, chronic disease management, post-hospitalisation and elder care cannot be provided by the hospital alone. And the continuum of care can only be

maintained with homecare which offers specialised services at a reduced cost,” Ganesh had said in an earlier interaction with BW Businessworld.