PolicyBazaar looks for cover in SoftBank’s healthy startup list

NEW DELHI: Two months after closing a $238-million funding round led by SoftBank’s Vision Fundwhich propelled it into the unicorn club, online insurance aggregator PolicyBazaar is eyeing working with other portfolio companies of the world’s biggest tech investor for its newest offering, DocPrime.

Having brought the Tokyo-headquartered SoftBank into its fold has also given the Gurgaon-headquartered company the opportunity to work with China’s Ping An Insurance Group, which owns and operates Ping An Good Doctor — the world’s largest healthcare portal —and which is also backed by the Japanese strategic holdings company.

The developments come at a time when PolicyBazaar has announced the launch of DocPrime, its new healthcare business, which is currently in beta stage, and is expected to officially launch this month.

“During our conversations, Soft-Bank asked us to look at Ping An, and see whether the model could be replicated…These conversations took place in 2018 itself… We have had conversations with Ping An. We have been to China, and looked at ways for us to work together,” Yashish Dahiya, group chief executive ETechAces, the parent of PolicyBazaar told ET.

Ping An Good Doctor, which connects patients with doctors, claims to have over 190 million registered users and more than 30 million monthly active users. It provides healthcare and business insurance management services such as expense control service, actuarial service, healthcare insurance account service, medical resources management and health profile application PolicyBazaar’s new business unit has a similar profile. The broader idea behind DocPrime is to convert consumers spending out of pocket on healthcare, into doing that via insurance. It is a monthly subscriptionbased service that will provide complete coverage of out patient department (OPD) expenses incurred by users, covering all doctor calls, medical checks and tests, barring surgeries and pharmacy-related expenses.

“Lots of interesting dynamics going on at the moment, but we are very excited about the future,” Dahiya said. “We would be delighted to have Ping An on board.. But it’s their choice.” DocPrime has 14,000 doctors and an estimated 10,000 labs and clinics on its network, according to Dahiya.