'First Minute, Last Mile': StanPlus raises $20M capital; to focus on 8-minute ambulance paradigm

Hyderabad: StanPlus, an emergency health service providing Indian company raised $20 million capital in `Series A investment'. Notably, this is the largest Series A funding raised in the healthcare sector.

Series A is one of the stages in the capital-raising process by a startup. It is a type of equity-based financing wherein the company procures the required capital from investors by selling its shares.

Speaking on the investment, Prabhdeep Singh, Founder & CEO, StanPlus, said, "In India, groceries are delivered in 10 minutes but ambulances take 45. At StanPlus, we are focusing on the 8-minute ambulance paradigm – I like to call it the 'First Minute, Last Mile' Healthcare. The capital will allow us to scale across India, bring amazing talent to work on this mission, and build world-first technologies!"

The round was led by marquee investors, including Healthquad, Kalaari Capital, and HealthX Capital Singapore. Marquee investors are individual or institutional investors who invest in companies and those companies turn into success stories in the future. Pegasus (Hiranandani family office), Sandeep Singhal (Avaana), and Prashant Malik also participated alongside a clutch of angel investors.

Overall, the capital infusion will be utilized to scale up StanPlus's operations to 500 hospitals, launch its flagship Red Ambulance brand in 15 cities from the current 5. The end goal is to bring the ambulance Expected Time of Arrivals (ETAs) down to 8 minutes from the current 15 minutes by StanPlus.

Stanplus has developed an innovative, tech-enabled platform to effectively address emergency responses and manage timely ambulance dispatches through its fleet of Red Ambulances, thus addressing the above deficiencies.

"With an inadequate and inefficient medical emergency response system (ERS) currently in India, our case fatality rates for road traffic accidents, cardiac and neurological emergencies remain significantly higher than those of the developed world, largely due to the lack of efficient retrieval systems during the 'Golden Hour'. Stanplus has developed an innovative, tech-enabled platform to effectively address emergency responses and manage timely ambulance dispatches through its fleet of Red Ambulances, thus addressing the above deficiencies. We believe that this model could be rapidly scaled up across the country and has the potential to save millions of lives in the coming years. We are excited to back the company and look forward to supporting its objective of building quality ERS across India," said Charles- Antoine Janssen, CIO, HealthQuad.

Vani Kola, MD at Kalaari Capital, said: "Over the last two years, we have witnessed first-hand the importance of efficient healthcare infrastructure in India. While there has been a lot of buzz around quick-commerce and 15-minute grocery delivery, Stanplus is one company making 15-minute emergency healthcare services a reality in India. We at Kalaari are humbled and proud to be a part of Stanplus very early on and are excited about the disruption StanPlus will bring to emergency healthcare."

StanPlus, which played a vital role in providing emergency health services in the first and second wave of COVID-19 in Hyderabad, has geared up and prepared for the third wave too. "We have increased our teleconsulting services, we have more ambulances now, we are ready to fight any case of ambulance shortage, and we have also expanded our services to five cities," said Prabhadeep to NewsMeter.