How This Startup is Beating the Ring of Diabetes Aiming to make quality diabetes care simple, affordable and accessible.

World becomes a healthier place, not when doctors cure us, but rather when few sensitive people decide to take matters in their own hand and make a difference.

Diabetes is a rampant epidemic in India that has impacted over 60 million people living in the country. Sensing the need to cater to this agony and personal experience of having suffered from the ailment, Yash along with his two friends founded BeatO. It aims at making quality diabetes care simple, affordable and accessible.

Inception of BeatO

This startup idea was incepted In June 2015 when Gautam, the Co-founder of BeatO met Yash and learnt of his pre-diabetic state predicted by the doctors. Both, Yash and Gautam joined hands to work in the healthcare space.

"I decided to quit my cushy job with Lufthansa Group in Europe and moved back to India to start BeatO with Yash and Abhishek. It was a big decision as I decided to move my family that comprised of a 1 year old baby and a comfortable job with a large company with over 40,000 people! The next one for me will be when we hit a million users globally," said Gautam.

Founded in August 2015, BeatO has attracted 15K downloads in less than 75 days, emerging as the top app for diabetes.

"BeatO is helping me get my HbA1c in control. I am a patient zero for team BeatO and it worked for me. At that time I knew we were taking small steps to build a simple, yet powerful service," said Yash Sehgal, Co-founder, BeatO.

Challenges are the opportunities to excel

For the Co-founders, challenges never hamper their spirits. Infact, they seek challenges as an opportunity to excel.

"All three of us truly believe that bigger the challenge is bigger the opportunity. Our wives and families will vouch for the fact that at times they need to peal us away from work. There have been few times when some of us have not slept, not because of the challenge at hand, but the excitement and prospect of addressing this huge opportunity that is upon us. We have a clear, goal oriented approach when it comes to our personal targets and we all push each other to go above and beyond our scope of work," said Sehgal.

Why Experts like it?

With the aim is to control diabetics and prevent complications, BeatO focuses on diabetes education, complemented with delivering a range of services for a diabetic at home.

A Diabetes and Obesity Expert, Dr. Anoop Misra, Chairman Fortis CDOC, whose patients have been using this app said "Surely, use of such an app empowers my patients to manage diabetes effectively. We face lesser health related roadblocks during subsequent visits, since many of the problems are tackled by patients themselves when continuously engaged to this app."

Manish Arora, Chairman UCC Care also uses BeatO to provide diabetes care at his residential senior living program, The Golden Estate.

"Their comprehensive bouquet of services ranging from diabetes education, foot care, to diabetes retinopathy delivered anywhere, anytime has attracted me to BeatO. The front line of diabetes control is a click away and the app is simple & senior citizen friendly," said Arora.

Funds are beginning to Roll In

The company was founded with the co-founders pooling their savings. They have also raised the first round of funding with strategic investors and early believers. The current funds are being used for product development and build-up of operations.

"Our sheer commitment to the idea, ability to get quick traction from users and team dynamics is what attracted investors to us at this time. The BeatOApp was launched in end December 2015 and "at home" care services were started in third week of Feb 2016. We have not pivoted so far," said Sehgal.

The Way Forward

Focusing on providing diabetes care services at home in Delhi/ NCR, the venture plans scale up to other Metros and Tier II cities. "We plan to establish the "at home' care services in Delhi / NCR over the next two months and then will look to expand these into new cities like Bengaluru, Mumbai & Pune," said Sehgal.

They had launched their app 2 months ago and currently they are in the phase of launching BeatO Care, BeatO'sat "home care" services for diabetics. "We have managed to get good early adoption within the healthcare facilities where we are present and also with the global user base. We are amongst the top 15 apps for the key words like "diabetes" and "diabetes management" globally, and No. 1 in India," said Abhishek.

From a global perspective, the app will now focus on diabetes-related education, which will be delivered in a contemporary and modern way along with quick Do It Yourself analysis and tips.