Practo Plans Major Expansion This Year

New Delhi: Practo , is planning to expand operations across all cities this year, as against the present 35 its operational in. An announcement to this effect was made by Chief Executive , Shashank ND. Head quartered in Bangalore, Practo now plans to expand its world operations. The current four countries that have presently opened up its market to Practo are Sinagpore, Phillipines, Malaysia and Indonesia.

According to the Chief Executice officer, the company plans to significantly increase its revenue in the current fiscal year.To further emphasise on the point Shashank said the group was very revenue focused and did not encourage discount games.

According to Economic Times the three major revenue streams of the company include software sales, hardware sales and tablet sales which are used for managing appointments and front offices by the medical fraternity. Another category being that of classifieds, wherein, the Practo platform makes available sponsored listings to hospitals."There is a lot of scope for further expansion of our hardware sales," added Shashank.

According to the Registrar, Companies, Practo's revenue increased to Rs 29.73 crore from Rs 2.30 crore a year earlier, while the company has incurred a loss of Rs 12.85 crore compared to Rs 9.88 crore in the same year.

Having raised $ 120 million last year, including a $90 million through series C round led by Tencent, a chinese firm, Practo made a September Qikwell Acquisition announcement, a $40-million buyout, which helps hospitals book appointments; another acquisition in the same period being Insta Health, a cloud -based hospital management software for $12 million.

Having acquired Insta Health, Practo has become a leading appointment booking platform, managing 40 million appointments every year. This, besides preventive healthcare application, FitHo and Genii, which helps e commerce, finance and media firms set up their online portals.

Machine learning, genome technology, wellness and fitness are some of the futuristic technologies that Practo intends acquiring this year. "We are looking not just at ideas but good products and we will be scouting for deals elsewhere outside of India," revealed Shashank.

Launched in 2008 by Shashank ND and Abhinav Lal, ' Practo Ray' was the first product creation of the company. It is offered as software-as-a service (SaaS), and serves doctors, while Practo Search is the app that helps patients find doctors.

Hospitals, clinics and doctors list their services on Practo. Backed by marquee investors Sequoia Capital and Matrix Partners, along with global investors such as Tencent, Russian billionaire Yuri Milner, Belgian investment company, Sofina, Google Capital and Altimeter Capital, Practo has acquired an international presence today.