BeatO: Leveraging technology for better health outcomes

BeatO Curv Smartphone Glucometer

Diabetes and hypertension have been the major killers in this pandemic, says Gautam Chopra, co-founder & CEO, BeatO, a leading diabetes management platform. “The situation looks even more grave when you consider that out of the 200 million Indians with these conditions, 80% have uncontrolled levels. With our holistic tech-based solution that supports end-to-end management for these conditions, we have a proven product and technology with a highly engaged and rapidly growing member base,” he adds.

Recently, New Delhi-based BeatO, a digital care ecosystem for chronic condition management, announced it has raised Rs 42 crore in funding led by US-based venture capital firm W Health Ventures. The funding also saw participation from PharmEasy (a Threpsi Solutions brand), Merisis VP and existing investors Orios VP, Leo Capital and others. With this new funding, BeatO has raised Rs 75 crore over the last year across its Series A and Pre-series B rounds. The fresh funds will be utilised across two key areas—growth in subscriber base across multiple channels and geographies, and product enhancement to provide care for other cardiometabolic conditions.

BeatO’s digital health platform combines real-time monitoring via its IoT-connected devices and app ecosystem to provide AI-driven personalised insights and proactive intervention by doctors and health coaches to patients with chronic condition such as diabetes. BeatO’s smartphone glucometers are extremely small, making them convenient to carry around and take accurate readings.

After the Covid-19 outbreak in the country, BeatO has seen a significant double-digit month-on-month growth both in members and revenues. BeatO has expanded to 500,000 app installs and 300,000 paid members (adding 25,000 paid members every month). The company is clocking an annual gross revenue run-rate of Rs 70 crore.

This growth is backed by a sharp increase in patient engagement. An average BeatO member measures her blood glucose ~9 times per month, which is 3x more than India’s average and can bring sugar levels under control within three months. This can largely be attributed to BeatO’s user-friendly app (which makes measuring and tracking blood glucose levels easy), real-time actionable insights and data-driven proactive intervention through its health coaches and doctors.

Higher engagement is driving better clinical outcomes. BeatO’s real-world evidence-based studies have been published in the prestigious American Diabetes Association and the Advanced Technologies and Treatment for Diabetes forums. These large population-based studies from India demonstrated that within 30 days, BeatO’s programme is effective in reducing mean blood glucose levels by 10% and for patients prone to hypoglycemia, the programme is effective in reducing hypoglycemia incidence by 52%.