HD, a Thailand-based healthcare startup, has secured $7.8 million in equity funding. The investment aims to enhance its marketplace and expand its AI technology. This marks the first investment by U.S. pharmaceutical giant Merck Sharp & Dohme (MSD) in a healthtech startup in the Asia Pacific region. Other participants in this funding round include SBI Ven Capital, M Venture Partners, FEBE Ventures, and Partech Partners.

Established in 2019, HD operates HDmall, a platform designed to digitize the fragmented medical industry in Southeast Asia. The platform helps users find healthcare providers such as hospitals and clinics. It also facilitates the search for specific surgeries and health check-ups, aggregates services to reduce costs, and offers installment payment options.

Currently, HD's marketplace features over 30,000 stock-keeping units (SKUs) from more than 2,500 hospitals and clinics. It also collaborates with several pharmaceutical partners. The platform has attracted 400,000 paying customers across Thailand and Indonesia, generating an annual gross transaction volume of $100 million. The company aims to expand its network to 5,000 healthcare providers and serve 600,000 patients by 2025.

In early 2024, HD introduced an AI chatbot named Jib AI. This chatbot has been trained on anonymized healthcare product data, transaction data, and chat commerce datasets using advanced large language models. Following the integration of generative AI technology, nearly 60% of customer interactions are now managed by AI agents. These agents provide high-quality, instant, 24/7 responses to customers.

Jib AI assists healthcare professionals, including nurses, doctors, and surgeons, by handling initial triaging and care navigation tasks. This allows them to focus on delivering quality patient care. Over the next year, HD plans to enhance its AI agent's capabilities. New features will include order and refund processing, assisted checkouts, scheduling, electronic health record checking, and medical information retrieval.

The company also intends to offer AI-powered asynchronous virtual care with expert physicians. Additionally, HD aims to expand its network of external partners over the next two years. The focus will be on collaborations with insurance and pharmaceutical companies, as well as employers and educational institutions.

The healthcare landscape in Southeast Asia differs significantly from Western countries. Without a family doctor system, patients often go directly to hospitals or clinics. This makes it difficult to find appropriate healthcare services and understand associated costs.

Approximately 40% of healthcare expenses in the region are paid out-of-pocket. Private health insurance coverage is also limited. As a result, there is a growing demand for platforms that offer clarity, transparency, and ease of comparison among various providers.

HD positions itself as a blend of Amazon's One Medical in the U.S., Chinese outpatient healthcare platforms like JD Health and Alibaba Health, and India's inpatient healthcare platform Pristyn Care. Instead of listing individual general practitioners or offering physician appointment scheduling, HD enables healthcare providers to sell productized services.

Its offerings range from health checkups and cancer screenings to surgeries like thyroid and hemorrhoid procedures. This approach aligns with how many individuals in the region begin their healthcare journeys—by searching for specific services rather than individual doctors.

HD currently operates in Thailand and Indonesia. It plans to expand into Vietnam and explore Myanmar due to their similar healthcare systems. The company sees significant opportunities in these markets, especially as more responsibility for healthcare costs shifts towards the private sector.

More individuals are becoming accustomed to using digital tools like Google Search or ChatGPT for healthcare-related inquiries. This aligns with HD's mission to empower individuals to make informed healthcare choices.

SOURCE: | PHOTO: MERCK

This article was created with AI assistance.