Healthcare startup grows 20% a month and receives $3.5 million to get accelerated
Hippo Drs, founded at USP in 2015, wants to use the money to be present in more than 100 Brazilian cities.
A startup that grows 20% is doing something right and deserves a spur to grow even more, correct? That’s what investors believe, who have just put $3.5 million in Hippo Drs, a healthcare startup that acts as a personal medical assistant.
Four groups of angel investors made the contribution, putting the money in the startup founded at USP, which has in the command an entrepreneur who is only 26 year old. The startup is promising, there’s not been 2 years since its launching (founded in July 2015) and it is already in break-even point, receiving as much money as it spends.
The company is present in 25 cities, in five Brazilian states, and wants to use the money to accelerate its growth and reach 100 cities in 8 states by the of the year. In addition, it has more than 1,000 medical partners and operates more than 3,000 monthly visits, which includes medical appointments and examinations, among other procedures, such as acquisition of auxiliary equipment such as eyeglasses, for example.
The company has good attractiveness for the client, who can schedule appointments in up to 48 hours at prices starting at R$70.00, without adhesion and without monthly cost, and for doctors, who have the autonomy to perform their work in their manner, including examination requests, and are better paid than by health plans.
It was born of an actual problem
Like many other startups, the idea of Hippo Drs was born of an actual problem that its founder, Raulo Ferraz, faced. He had suffered a motorcycle accident and needed an appointment with an orthopedist, using his health plan — which happened to be very difficult to get. From then on, he decided to start and accumulate achievements. “In 2016, we won the Business Marathon of Campus Party Brasil and then Venture Capital Brasil and received the first contribution. We jumped from a team of five to 22 people in three months. In time, we noticed that this was not sustainable and then we reduced it to 8 people. Even with this cut, our sales volume increased by almost 40%”, says Ferraz, who was attending Administration at FEA/USP in Ribeirão Preto.
The original idea was to be a “Healthcare Uber”, but the model evolved as time passed, with all feedback received from our users. “The medical appointment is not the end. Good care requires exams, medications and their correct use. All these interactions are of interest to Hippo Drs, including vaccines and preventive tests such as the ‘little foot’ test, and others”, says Ferraz. Now, Hippo Drs connects the client to the services of doctors, laboratories, imaging diagnostics, pharmacies and even optics, thinking about the health of the individual.
Global plans
One of the interesting points about Hippo Drs is its willingness to become a global company capable of solving the health problems of both a Brazilian and a Russian. For this, the beginning was humble, with Raulo doing manual work and learning programming to create the first website. “In the first 50 appointments we scheduled, I stayed at the reception of the clinics accompanying and talking to the clients. At the end of the appointment, I would identify myself and make a short interview to better understand the experience”, he recalls.
In addition, a few small changes were required to get him into a good lead generation. “On the first website I programmed, there was a button that led to a Google form. Very simple. I discovered that I had 60 clicks there, but no form was filled out. In the third week, we displayed a phone number and received five calls on the same day. I looked like a child on Christmas Eve. Today we receive more than 500 contacts per day, via application, email, phone, whatsapp, chat, and now also through the site”, he says that now he should seek a CTO.
The business almost went bankrupt
Despite all this success, the CEO remembers that the company almost broke if it had not received a saving contribution. In December of 2015, without money, the financial flow of the company showed only two more months of existence. “If nothing happened, on February 28 the company would close its doors”, recalls Raulo. He went to Campus Party in early 2016 and it was their salvation.
The success at the fair made the company take its first contribution, from Thamila Zaher, educational group SEB. Also in 2016, the company received two more contributions, after the Venture Capital Expo competition, came two more important contributions. Rodrigo Quinalha’s Kick Ventures and an angel investor in the health sector entered the business.
With the money, the company has gone from three to 21 cities in just three months. In other words, the company went from an awful start to a strong expansion in late 2016. “This result paved our way, as it showed that we were able to grow rapidly and sustainably”, says the founder.
Now the company has done yet another round, which ended this week. This time, they invested in the company: Luiz Namura, president of Solum Ambiental, in São José dos Campos; A family of doctors from Curitiba; A group of businessmen from Belo Horizonte that work in the area of construction and popular clinics; And a family of planters from Ribeirão Preto.
With R$3.5 million in the pocket, the company intends to grow even outside Brazil. But first, it must conquer the Brazilian market. The company has already received invitations to open operations in Mexico and Panama, but keeps Latin America on its radar. “At this moment, the goal is to maintain 20% growth per month”, he concludes. Good luck.
Source: StartSe
Billy D. Aldea-Martinez, heads up Latin America and Brazil for Piano, the world’s leader SaaS Platform that allows media companies to launch Direct Monetization models, such as metering and paywall solutions for digital content and user data analysis.
Billy is also a Digital Monetization Strategy consultant and exclusively works with Latin America’s largest media groups, such as Editora Abril (Brazil), Grupo Globo (Brazil) as well as Grupo Copesa (Chile).
He also serves as Board Advisor & Angel Investor for adtech & martech startups such as Start-up Chile, Start-up Peru, Parallel18 (PR) Admetricks and Starter Daily.
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