Where Care Gets Closer to Home | Entrepreneur Stories

So can you guys start with your full names, your company name, and kind of an elevator pitch?

Sound is how we stay connected to the people we love. Rohit knew that. And after 15 years inside the hearing industry, he also knew the system was failing the very people who needed it most. So he built the platform he always wished had existed.

I've seen the plight of the parents of the young children, the children who are born with congenital deafness. And have no access to such solutions. And the kids live their life, a large part of their life, without hearing aid, and after that it is of almost insignificant use. My plight came from the inability of these parents to find testing and a solution, despite being willing, but not being able to find a test and a solution. I come with 30 years experience in healthcare, 17 of which in hearing aid problems. You know, when I joined this industry in 2007, this country was crying a very sad song, and lyrics being 60% of people do not have access to an audiologist. 6-0. And this is not Indian figure, these are global figures. There's a lack of audiologists, there's a lack of service for a person to go and get himself tested. And then the expensive hearing aids is the second deterrent. We are solving both the problems with making the diagnostic remote and the fitting of the hearing aid also remote.

EarCart also has a foundation with the name Surup Charitable Foundation, where we have experienced a real-time interaction with multiple, multiple patients whom we fit the hearing aids. And now the second part where the EarCart comes in They're walk-in patients, they're patients at the ENT clinics. Hence, the amazing interaction journey when we fit a hearing aid, we see the smile on their faces, they hear the sound for the first time. I can't express the expressions, the gratitude we get from them is amazing.

Top global brands, transparent pricing, a certified audiologist anywhere in India. EarCart puts world-class hearing care in your hands and gets out of the way.

Hi, I'm Rohit Mishra. I'm founder at EarCart.

Hi, I'm Monica Mishra. I'm co-founder at EarCart. And at EarCart, we have a full-stack solution, phygital solution, for all the hearing problems. So the core team is of 3, which includes Rohit, myself, and Rahul Salesha. And we have a rest of the team 41 people working for EarCard. We have in-house production, we have our own audiology team of around 12 audiologists at present, and it's a hybrid model because the devices can be handled remotely, so the audiologists can be anywhere across the world and they can do the diagnosis.

In Army, a soldier on the frontiers has to get his hearing tested every 6 months, but to get this tested He has to travel 2 days down to the base, get 1 day of testing, go back, back 2 days to the base. 5 days gone, a full working week gone. And imagine we are talking about 600,000 such people. With the help of this, we were able to do the testing right at the frontier in real time, avoiding the entire hassle of coming down, going back.

So with EarCart and introducing this device to the EarCart Omni, We made this diagnostic available all across the globe.

So what would the opportunity to work with Tim Draper mean for you?

Working with Tim, I think this has come as an opportunity at the right time. It's because I and Rohit were in the US last month. We were presenting our model of this remote audiometry there, and we got an overwhelming response from the ENT community and the people we met there. And we are about to set our foot in USA with Tim and the Draper support. This will be like disrupting the hearing aid market in US. Easy for us.

100 million people in India live with hearing loss. Only a fraction get help. Rohit and Manika are quietly, persistently changing that ratio. One year, One life, one clear conversation at a time.

What would a million-dollar investment mean for your company right now?

Putting this $1 million in just about the execution play in the US and in India will take us to at least $50 to $60 million in a very short term. It's a backbone that we need right now.

I'm kind of curious also, like, on a personal level, like, Your parents or your friends or your significant others? Like when you said, I'm giving up the security of a job where, you know, it's very safe to go out and start a business on my own as an entrepreneur where the market is trying to kill it.

Everybody said, are you a moron? Are you out of your mind? You have lived a life royally, earned so much money, you have no liability. Enjoy life. This is the time most people start enjoying life, and you are trying to get into a drill which will actually be much more demanding than life has ever been. A lot of my friends, a lot of my colleagues, a lot of well-wishers also said it's a very stupid decision. If these big companies have not been able to do it, why are you even going in that direction?

It was like, it's a time for you to retire and you are entering the entrepreneurship She came from behind and she said, you know what, let's do it.

Everything that they say is right. It's time to enjoy, let's enjoy together. It's time to relax, let's relax together. Let's make a difference together and walk onto this entrepreneurial journey.

So I was into a cosmetic industry, and from there he dragged me into his new journey. Of Aircard, and I think it was the right decision for me.

She had one of the best cosmetology practices up north in Delhi, a very, very evolved one, but she gave up that and she said, why don't we start on this journey together? Because 2 is a better team than one, and actually it came true.

So, uh, can we start with just an introduction? Just your name, your company name, and the smallest version of what you do.

A foot amputation doesn't happen overnight. It begins quietly. A nerve going numb. A warning the body whispers and medicine misses. Nishant decided that silence was no longer acceptable.

Diabetes leads to sensory nerve damage, which we call neuropathy. Because of that, patients feel no pain even if the foot is injured. So those injuries lead to ulcers, gangrene, and eventually amputation, ranging from toe to the entire leg. I have seen multiple patients who are walking and having this bottleneck, or, you know, in their shoes, and but they don't They are not even aware of, you know, those pins in their shoes, and they are walking generally with the blood clots and everything. But we are here for early detection, so we have never seen any such patients like at the later stage post-detection of this. So during my graduation, I had 2 startups which couldn't scale up. So those were in e-commerce domain. So I was looking for opportunities and the ecosystem which can help us grow. So post graduation, when I was doing my job in IT industry, so I was looking for those kind of opportunities and there I applied for competitive exams. So I landed up in for my master's in IIT Bombay. So where I was working on multiple projects, so there was a course called collaborative engineering course. In which doctors and engineers used to club together and solve a real-life problem. So there was one doctor who placed this problem called diabetic foot, and later on realized that three of my family members are also severely affected with that. That's what motivated me to start working full time on this. So if I talk about the current available method that called nerve conduction velocity, so that takes around forty to sixty minutes per patient. Mostly available in metro cities and around charging around $200 to $250 per patient. So what we want is to make that test more affordable and accessible to the primary market as well. So that's where we introduced our product called VibraSense, which is just a 5-minute test. You'll get a report in 5 minutes, connects with the mobile application. With one charge, you will, you can test 100+ subjects. So that's why it is more accessible to the primary care. So there are multiple doctors who are utilizing this. There is Fortis Hospital, Aster Hospital. So those hospitals are utilizing this product for early testing of detection of nerve damage among diabetic patients.

Portable, affordable, 5 minutes. Ayathi's devices catch diabetic neuropathy before it turns catastrophic, putting early detection in the hands of every doctor in every corner of the country.

I am Nishant Kartpal, CEO and co-founder of Ayati Devices. We are a medtech startup with major focus on nerve damage and its associated complications. If we need to accomplish bigger tasks, we need to have a team together. Then the mission and the vision statement that we set for ourselves. Then post that, after development of the product, then there is a journey for commercialization, starting with product safety test, then regulatory compliances, post that government approvals, local body approvals for the deployment, and then marketing comes, then the distribution part comes. So that's the overall development which I'll say starting from zero to the final deployment of the product. So it's called Ayate Devices. So it was in 2019 when we got our first grant that from Government of India, that's around $70,000. And at that time we need to, uh, you know, put down the name for the company. And so my professor suggested that the company name should start from A. So that's a funny thing because he wanted if there is a name in any of the list, you will be in the top if you get selected. That is one thing. And the second is IIT is a Sanskrit word, it comes from aya. So aya means ma. So we are some like we as a company we are taking care of something. So that's what it means as I think.

So what does the opportunity to work with Tim mean to you?

So participating in this competition was would mean to go global, and that's where I am looking for the opportunity. Tim is having lot of experience working with the this startups. and he has done, uh, yeah, invested in a lot of international startups which have gone to unicorn level as well. So what we were expecting is a lot of connections from him so that we can also grow globally.

77 million diabetics in India. Most of them don't know what's coming for their feet. Nishant built something that does and is already changing outcomes across 17 countries, one device at a time.

So what would a million-dollar investment mean for your company?

Million-dollar investment will help us in 3 aspects. One is the scaling up till primary level. The second is growing global. So there are 2 kinds of market for us. One is Indian market, like pharma-driven market, and one is international market, which is insurance-driven. So we want to do our pilots in insurance-driven countries, so that will certainly help. And third is growing our team and, uh, increasing the production capacity.

How does your wife feel about you working 15 hours a day? Is she supportive or is it a challenge?

See, a startup, a founder is doing, but you are sacrificing their time as well. So I am getting good amount of support from my wife, from my families. So just if that comes in camera, I'm saying hi to them.

Did they always support your journey to be an entrepreneur, or did it take some time for them to understand what you were trying to do?

My wife was supportive since the start, but my family— my father is having background in army, so earlier he said, why are you doing this? Get an MNC job, work in AC room. But after a year or so, he is also inclined towards this now. He is now totally supporting me.

What do you think a younger version of yourself would think about where you are now?

I won't be surprised because from the starting itself, I want to do the business aspect. So I always wanted to become the businessman. But whether I was aware of this journey, that I was not. And throughout the life, In last 5 to 6 years, what I have learned, it's not being, you know, delivered at the college or schools. So that's the whole new journey which I have gone through. So I would be proud.

So Let's start with an introduction. Your full name, your company name, and then just like the shortest version of what you do, like one sentence, you know, elevator pitch.

A blood test shouldn't cost more than the disease it's trying to prevent. Komal and Chaitali built EasyRx because preventive healthcare was failing the people who needed it most.

Quietly, invisibly, So this is a mass-level screening device. So suppose we are considering a district which is called Jhajpur District in Odisha. So there you can find there is a huge condition for the anemia cases. So we have supplied the EasyCheck devices to Jhajpur District.

I am from Durgapur, a city in West Bengal, and I did a B.Tech in electrical engineering, and after that I joined EasyRx.

So basically, I am from Dhanbad, Jharkhand, and I visited Odisha for my study purposes. And after completion of master's in biotech, I joined EasyRx as a product manager. And now since 3 years, I am working at EasyRx.

The idea is about from our CEO, Mr. Parthivatim Dashmahapatra. His mother was suffering from his childhood. He had seen his mother was suffering from childhood in anemia. It's 20 to 25 years back in Indian villages, the healthcare system was not so developed. So from that point of view, that pain point of view, she come to this thought and make this company and work on the anemia detection device, which is purely non-invasive to serve the society. So our device is purely non-invasive. So one did not feel pain and it's an infection-free process and device is also IoT enabled. So if we get the test, in a place and the patient wants to send this report to another place, so he can send it instantly to that person and all and get that proper medication for that. So for that, he did not go to anywhere, did not travel, and did not— also it is economical, as I say, and it's a time-saving also because in the traditional method we have to go to the lab and do the test, and after do the test we have to wait for the half of the day to get the report. And after that, in the next day, we have to go to the doctor and get the proper medication.

No needle, no lab, no waiting. EasyCheck reads 5 critical health markers in seconds: blood sugar, anemia, kidney, liver, lung, for the cost of a single rupee.

Hi, I am Chaitali Rai, COO at EasyRx HealthTech Private Limited, which has made A non-invasive hemoglobin meter which can detect anemia.

So hello, this is Komal Agarwal and I am the product manager at EasyRx HealthTech Private Limited, and our company is involved in making non-invasive devices for effective hemoglobin screening within less than a minute time.

In our team, apart from our founder Mr. Parthiv Pratim Das Mahapatra, there are other 2 co-founders and all have some expertise in IT, data science, and electronic fields. Apart from that, we have 41 other diversified resources from different verticals like IT, Python developers, and app developers, production engineer, QMS manager, QC manager, etc. So when it is going on after and after many changes, and at present we feel when we see the smiling faces of the people and they said us a thank to you. And even someone said that we are very afraid of pricking our blood, and from your device it is beneficial for us, but without pricking our blood we can do the hemoglobin test and all. This will be a satisfaction for us. And even the device, means today we are in market and deployed more than about 6,000 devices. This and all are successfully working in the field. So this will be a proud moment for us.

What would the opportunity to work with Tim Draper mean for your company?

As we are working in a medtech sector, so currently we are having more than sufficient funding, but still we need some innovators and innovative innovations that who can suggest us to that what we need to do and how we can develop further. So if he is investing in us and if he is coming up with us, we will having a super guide with us who can suggest us the correct pathway. And similarly, we can also purchase 2 or more similar companies Who can just help us to have a horizontal growth and market expansion for our company.

India's villages aren't short of people who want to be healthy. They are short of tools that reach them. EasyRx is changing that, making the doctor's table portable, affordable, and impossible to keep away from the last mile.

How about a billion-dollar investment?

Yeah. So currently we are thinking of means having a connection with two more companies in the same line. So if we are getting the investment, we can easily have a connection with them and we can help in the horizontal growth and market expansion for our company.

Actually, in the childhood, I was so shy and introvert that always my mother said, "You don't do why you did not communicate with people? Why you are shy and introvert and in the home?" Why you did not playing with anyone and go outside? So that's why when I think, and my mother also said that, uh, now you are in and what you are then, it's totally different. It's really opposite side of me.

Basically, I, when I was a small girl, so I was very silent and introvert girl. So if I am seeing that girl since 10 years or 15 years back, so I will be really surprised because I never thought I could be a leader in this sector. So now I am a product manager at my company. So I will be really astonished that I have such potential to make such an impact in the society. So I will really be astonished by seeing that girl 10 days back, 10 years later, and now which I am today. I will be really surprised.

Let's start with your full name, your company name, and like the elevator pitch, just sort of the core problem that you're solving, the smallest, smallest version.

Okay.

The best medical devices in the world rarely reach the people who need them most. Anil spent years watching that gap widen and decided the only way to close it was to build something that never accepted the word inaccessible.

When I was born and I was a toddler, I had an accident. And it's till today, I cannot move my hand, you know. So this entire movement is not there. And, you know, that time my parents decided, okay, I mean, the healthcare infrastructure, almost like I'm talking like 48 years, I'm 49 years old, was not there. And they didn't want to, you know, and then they did meet a few surgeons, and then it was pretty expensive at that point in time. Even today, I mean, it's expensive for, I would say, 90% of the population in India to get, you know, operated. And that is the reason why, you know, we thought about doing it. So I've been an accidental entrepreneur. I've been in the corporate side or corporate world for so long, almost like 25+ years. Seen a lot of medical devices, automation, worked with those companies, helped companies, you know, develop their medical devices. And then I was there in the US for about 4-5 years and then came back to India and saw that, you know, there's still a big gap with respect to medical devices and the overall healthcare infrastructure here in India. And that's basically got me going to see, can I do something to solve that problem? So one is we are trying to build what is there to perform a particular surgery. But in addition to that, what we are also trying to do is build the technologies which form that device. So for example, miniature precision motion control, you know, mechatronics, embedded technologies, electronics. So we are building those technologies. That's one. Second is we are also building in intelligence into the device, wherein which we will be able to— we are actually capturing the signatures, the electrical signatures, and we are actually writing AI code on that to identify when the device is going to fail. They were actually able to use our devices in the tier 2, tier 3 hospitals which didn't have these medical devices. So we could actually take it to them. You know, it was ambulatory in nature. You can actually put it in a small suitcase and carry it, and they could do those surgeries in, you know, smaller cities, smaller towns, which today don't have those facilities. So that's kind of the validation that we also have that, you know, our— whatever we are doing is actually helping take healthcare and infrastructure to smaller cities and towns in India.

Smart, intuitive, built for surgeons in Mumbai and clinics in emerging markets alike. Frontiers makes medical devices that don't ask the world to come to them. They go to the world.

So my name is Anil Alex. I'm the founder and CEO of Frontiers Private Limited. We are trying to solve the issue with respect to healthcare in India and the affordability piece of it. So we are a very young team. We are a total of about 15 people today. We have about 6 to 7 in the engineering function, a few people in operations, and we have about 4 people in sales and marketing. So what happens is we don't directly interact with patients. Now, most of our devices are used by surgeons. So what happens is we mostly get feedback from the surgeons as to, you know, how it helped them in the operation. So we have got a few testimonials with respect to they were able to complete the surgeries much faster, much more efficiently.

What would the opportunity to work with Tim Draper mean to your company right now?

The opportunity with Tim Tim would help us, one, bring us to limelight with respect to not just India but globally. Second, we would also be looking at the funding aspect of it, which will help us grow to the next phase of our journey with respect to building products not just for India but getting it certified for, you know, countries outside of India and also look at our product roadmap, which is developing, you know, adjacent products and meeting our product roadmap goals.

India has the engineering. India has the empathy. What it needed was a company willing to build medical technology as if every life mattered equally. That's what Anil is building at Frontiers, one frontier at a time.

What would a million-dollar investment do for your company right now?

A million-dollar investment would mean that we would be able to, one, get our products outside of India. We should be able to certify— use that money to certify our products to sell outside of India. And also start on our goals with respect to maybe 1 or 2 products on the product roadmap side.

Who do you share your victory with if you win today? Who's your first call?

Well, it would be my friends and my, you know, people who supported me through this tough journey. I mean, people who stood by me saying, okay, you know, we can do it. People who have given me a lot of support, not just emotionally, but also in terms of, you know, like backing up with respect to a lot of knowledge, a lot of those people. So I would say friends and, you know, people I am connected with and who stood by me.