Bengaluru: Ovum Hospital raises 5 million dollars in funding

Bengaluru: $ 5 million has been raised by Ovum hospitals, a boutique, maternity and pregnancy hospital to establish three more branches of the group.The money has been raised from Northwest Venture partners and IL&FS.

Run by four doctors, Praveen Venkatagiri, Adarsh Somashekar, Venkatagiri Reddy and Sailesh Vittala, Ovum, a Neonatal Care and Research Institute was founded by them in 2011. With a reported revenue of Rs.18 crore and a profit of Rs. 1 crore, the hospital competes with the likes of Apollo Hospitals' Cradle, Cloudnine, and Motherhood.

The reason to have initiated this 30 bed facility was the absence of specialised maternity and child care hospitals in the new and emerging suburbs of Bangalore, said Venkatagiri, one of the four partners. According to him, the hospital looks after the suburban needs and does more than a 1000 deliveries every year. It has caught on in the suburbs, as women do not like to travel long distances in a state of pregnancy.

The second hospital is to begin within a period of 6 months and is looking at a revenue of 24 crores at the close of the year. This new facility is also meant to be a 30 bedded one.

"We are looking at an outcome-based model to reduce the cost of deliveries. This will also bring more transparency in the space," Venkatagiri said, adding that the venture money will bring more professionalism. "All the founders are doctors and we hope that VCs will bring in financial discipline and a corporate culture," he added.