Doctor search & appointment booking platform Qikwell has raised Rs 18 crore in Series A funding from SAIF Partners, reports The Times of India. Earlier this year, Qikwell had secured Rs 1.2 crore in angel funding from a group of investors, including Amit Somani, Sunil Kalra and Alok Mittal.
The Bangalore-based company plans to use the funds to expand its sales and marketing efforts across the country.
Founded by Krishna Prasad C and Raghavendra Prasad TS in 2011, Qikwell allows users to search for doctors based on specialisation and locality of clinic. Users can also get real-time updates about the availability of the doctors in particular time slots and book appointments accordingly. Qikwell charges the doctors or clinics a commission for appointments made through its platform.
The service is currently available in Bangalore, Chennai, Krishnagiri, Mysore, Shivamoga & Vellore. The company claims to have booked 1 million appointments till date and to facilitate over 1 lakh patient-doctor engagements every month.
Competition
– Directory services company Justdial recently revealed that it had developed a new vendor application targeted at doctors that will allow doctors to schedule appointments with their patients as well as save patient records on the cloud. Using this app, doctors will be able to save patient’s basic information, patient symptoms, prescribed medications and family medical history among others. JustDial had rolled out doctor appointments on its site last year as part of its transition to a services-focused transaction platform.
– Delhi-based HelpingDoc had raised Rs 10 crore in Series A funding from Singapore-based Senior Marketing System (SMS), in August this year. HelpingDoc also allows users to search for doctors based on location and other factors like specialty, medical problem, treatment and doctor’s name, and then sort through the results depending on consultation fees, experience, distance and availability.
– Doctor directory and clinic management system Lybrate had secured $1.225 million investment in August as well. Lybrate allows patients to identify doctors based on specialty and location. Search results provided to patients are sorted by the most recommended doctors. Each result displays the doctor’s specialty, address, experience, consultation fee, recommendations by verified users and a small clickable chart displaying the date and timings available for an appointment. At present the service is available in more than 20 cities, including Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderabad.
