The COVID-19 pandemic has brought about a permanent shift in consumer behaviour, which is unlikely to change even after the health crisis ebbs. Among those businesses expecting to benefit from the new normal is the Indonesian healthtech platform Halodoc.
The four-year-old company witnessed a surge in demand as patients logged on to its telemedicine feature to consult doctors amid the COVID-induced lockdown earlier this year.
“Post pandemic, some things will stay. As an example, people have come to enjoy having a meeting using the Zoom app. I will not be surprised if some medical consultations, too, continue to happen over telemedicine,” said Jonathan Sudharta, CEO and co-founder of Halodoc, in an exclusive chat with DealStreetAsia.
Besides teleconsultations, the Openspace Ventures-backed platform also offers home deliveries of medicines and online doctor appointments for those who prefer face-to-face consultation.
Halodoc has also launched new services for COVID times. “We are the first healthtech platform to run an online COVID-19 self-check [launched in March]. We also collaborate with hospitals, companies, and insurance firms for the Rapid and SWAB tests. It’s in high demand and now accounts for around 40 per cent of our transaction volume,” he added.
Since March, Halodoc’s transaction volumes have jumped 600 per cent. The growth has also prompted the company to think of new services that are currently in the investment stage.
The platform also witnessed a spike in new users. In 2019, Halodoc only had 2 million users, mostly from outside Java island. Currently, it has 18 million monthly active users, of which 50 per cent are from outside Java.
Openspace Ventures believes this traction will continue. “We believe post-COVID the growth of telemedicine will continue at a more modest pace but will become mainstream as some types of consultation, such as GP consultations and follow-up consultations, are suited for telemedicine. It is convenient and can increase the quality of care with higher levels of interactions between patients and doctors,” Hian Goh, co-founder and partner at Openspace Ventures said.
The Singapore-based VC firm, earlier called NSI Ventures, invested in Halodoc in 2016 in a $13 million Series A round led by Clermont Group. Indonesian ride-hailing decacorn Gojek, Investopedia, Capikris Foundation, and Indonesia’s e-commerce firm BliBli also participated in that fundraising.
In a Series B+ round last year, Halodoc raised $100 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; investment insurance firms Allianz X, and Prudential Financial; UOB Ventures; Korea Investment Partners; SingTel Innov8; and WuXi App Tec.
