Diabetes care provider Dr Mohan's raises Rs 66 crore for expansion

Dr Mohan’s Diabetes Specialities Centre has raised a Series-A investment round of $10.23 million (Rs 66 crore).

This round has Evolvence India Fund as co-investor. The investment is led by Lok Capital’s Advised Growth Fund, the third fund from Lok. This is the first round of institutional funding for Dr Mohan’s, since inception in 1991. It will use the money to expand from the current 25 clinics across seven states to 100 in the next four years.

Venky Natarajan, managing partner of Lok Capital and Ajit Kumar, the MD at Evolvence India Fund, will join the board of directors at Dr Mohan’s. Veda Corporate Advisors was financial advisor to Dr Mohan’s for this transaction.

Founded by V Mohan and his late wife, Rema Mohan, the entity is is one of the earliest in the organised sector of the diabetes care market in India.

Through an asset-light business model, it has reached to 25 centres, including two hospitals and 22 clinics, in seven states. It serves both urban and rural areas in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Odisha Puducherry and Delhi.

The company has also entered the diabetes-related food market with a high-fibre rice developed through research; it plans to add idli and dosa mixes and noodles suitable for diabetics. It would launch four to five new products by the end of this year, said Mohan.

Natarajan said the diabetes care market was still largely addressed by single doctor set-ups. There was a huge space for an organised care provider to build a pan-India chain, offering holistic care for diabetes. Dr Mohan’s, he noted, were prioneers in this area, with global renown for their research, with a model that was scalable through India. In five years, the company could grow by three to four times. The current annual revenue is around Rs 100 crore.

The International Diabetes Federation says this country will become the world's diabetes capital quite soon, with the number of diabetes cases expected to be over 100 million by 2030, from about 70 mn at present. The market for diabetes care is currently estimated at Rs 12,000 crore a year.