InsurTech startup Vital raises $3mn in pre-series A round led by BLinC Invest
Vital, a next-generation InsurTech platform offering tailor-made, comprehensive and pocket-friendly health plans designed specifically for every member’s individual needs, has raised $3mn in total with a pre-series A round led by India’s renowned venture capital company BLinC Invest. Venture Catalyst, Survam Partners and several other angel investors also participated in the pre-series A round.
Established in 2020 by former co-founder of Truly Madly and a senior management member of Expedia and Make My Trip, Rahul Kumar and health insurance industry expert and head of product at Apollo Munch Health Insurance, Jayan Mathews, Vital intends to reimagine health insurance by personalisating the coverage for each member based on their individual needs and going beyond hospitalisation to also include essential wellness expenses. All this is an affordable monthly subscription with premiums up to 70% lower by introducing the concept of small deductibles for the very first time in India. It rewards its members for leading a healthier lifestyle. They can earn points for using their benefits, which can eventually be used for paying the subscriptions. The app assigns a dedicated care manager to every member for comprehending his or her needs and queries in real-time.
The D2C health insurance platform has co-developed the insurance cover with Care Health Insurance and integrated with Mfine, Healthians, Thyrocare, 1Mg, BeatO, Fitterfly, Fitternity, Cult fit, and Betterlyf, for the wellness benefits. It takes less than 60 sec for a member to buy the plan and less than 2 minutes to intimiate a claim or book an appointment through the Vital website and app.
Commenting on raising the capital, Rahul Kumar, Co-Founder and CEO of Vital said, “Unlike traditional health insurance, which is one size fits all with expensive annual premium and numerous terms & conditions, we at Vital are leveraging technology and data science to build a more personalized experience with an integrated health and wellness approach and smarter product structuring to make the premiums much more affordable. Our goal is to not only stand by our members when they are sick but also manage their health with holistic wellness offerings and timely interventions to keep them from falling sick which means lower claim costs hence lower overall premiums.”
Amit Ratanpal, Founder and MD, BLinC Invest, “Our co-founder approach to investing in the EdTech and FinTech sectors is backed by a detailed internal research. In our recent InsurTech report, we identified significant gaps in the overall Indian insurance market and discovered huge market opportunity in the health insurance segment. The country presently has one of the lowest health insurance penetrations in the world and the existing health insurance plans are usually enveloped with innumerable terms and conditions, resulting in utter confusion around the coverage eligibility and ultimately a bad customer experience. Making healthcare cover 100% digital, inclusive and affordable is a great way to solve the problem and Vital is on a mission to do that. We at BLinC Invest are excited to associate with the team in their endeavour to reimagine the entire value chain of health cover by going beyond just hospitalisation and help people change their way of managing health and wellness expenses.”
“Vital is leveraging world-class technology and data science to bring transparency in this fragmented space and empowering the customers. It is an innovative approach with tremendous disruptive potential and makes us confident in our bet on the startup. The funds will significantly help GetVital scale and transform the way health insurance is perceived in India,” said Apoorv Ranjan Sharma, co-founder and president, Venture Catalysts.
As per the recent InsurTech report by BLinC Invest, the Indian insurance industry has a market size of $106 billion and life insurance accounts for 75 per cent of that after private players entered the industry in 1999 and contributed to its exponential growth. While globally, the industry has been attracting a lot of interest from the investor community, the Indian market is also producing InsurTech startups like Vital that are successfully driving different parts of the value chain.
According to General Insurance Council data almost Rs 24,000 crore worth of claims have been paid under medical insurance due to COVID-19-related hospitalisation and associated expenses. During the pre-covid times, the number of people who purchased comprehensive insurance plans was approximately 32%, while now after being hit by one of the biggest pandemics, this percentage has shot up to 55%.