HealthMetrics recently announced their success in securing a total of US$5 million (RM20.8 million) as part of its Series A funding.
The round was led by ACA Investments, one of Asia’s leading investment groups from Japan with over US$1 billion assets under management.
Established in Malaysia in 2015 by Alvin Yuan and Advent Phang, HealthMetrics focuses on the corporate side of healthcare management and aims to help businesses save on healthcare costs for employees.
As of 2020, HealthMetrics has seen a 500% growth in revenue since their seed funding in January.
They’re projecting an even higher growth with the launch of some new key products and geographical expansion.
Sustainable And Scalable To Investors
Alvin Yuan, CEO of HealthMetrics said that he saw a very consistent and accelerated year-on-year growth since their seed round back in January 2018.
Editor’s Note: Parts of the above paragraph have been edited to reflect greater accuracy of the statement.
When the pandemic hit, they saw a higher uptake for their digital solutions, but more on that later.
Being a tech platform makes the company scalable geographically, which Alvin said helps rapidly build a wide, robust, and integrated network.
This network effect is seen in many fast-growing platforms today such as LinkedIn, Grab, and Facebook.
“Coupled with our robust business model, solid tech, formidable team and accelerated growth, we believe ACA Investments saw a company that is not only a high-growth company but a very sustainable one,” he said.
HealthMetrics’ ability to integrate with other systems like HR Management Systems (HRMS), Enterprise Resource Planning Systems (ERP), hospital management systems, and insurance companies also accelerated their growth.
“This creates exciting opportunities for us to drive more efficiency and automation in line with the IR4.0 goals,” said Alvin.
The platform has the potential to expand their offerings and tap into new markets through their audience of over 1,000 companies, 180,000 users, and 3,000 healthcare partners nationwide.
Higher Uptake During The MCO
“When COVID-19 struck, we saw a fall in visitations by our corporate users to healthcare providers,” he said.
Alvin thinks this was due to a few reasons:
- The lockdown may have prevented or discouraged patients from visiting healthcare providers;
- Patients may be afraid to seek treatment due to potential contact risk;
- Social distancing may have broken the chain of infection at the workplace.
However, the lockdown meant companies began shifting from traditional methods of processes to adopting digital approaches for more sustainable operations.
“We saw this as an interesting progress where companies are ready to implement digitalisation, and due to the pandemic, the actual practice has advanced even faster than we expected,” he said.
HealthMetrics took advantage of this and launched The COVID-19 DocBot to ease patients’ anxiety and provide more clarity, as well as answering FAQs about the virus.
It was a chatbot to not only assist their corporate users, but also the general public in doing a self-check if they felt ill.
In addition, the company also developed a series of online engagements through webinars, provided clients with a “COVID-19 Disaster Response Framework”, and published a “Workplace Health & Safety Guidelines” for companies looking to restart operations.
Extending Their Support With The Funds
We last interviewed Alvin in 2018 on receiving funding from Spiral Ventures, RHL Ventures, and Cradle Seed Ventures.
Since then, they’ve expanded their cashless services to dental, optical, and specialist providers.
They’ve also improved their dynamic cost-containment settings to help companies manage employees’ healthcare costs more effectively.
With an additional US$5 million in the bank, the platform will extend its healthcare network to other types of providers, in addition to the aforementioned ones.
These include telemedicine services and wellness, as well as managing employees’ inpatient (hospitalisation) care.
Alvin said that this function will help companies and insurance providers optimise the cost of inpatient procedures, as these play a huge part in the rising cost of insurance.
HealthMetrics will also be utilising big data and AI to implement preventative programs that will enable companies to further save costs.
This will address any emerging health difficulties faced by employees before they escalate.
As we look to expand across the region, we aim to provide companies and their employees with more well-rounded digital solutions which meet their current needs which have evolved further since we founded our company five years ago.
Alvin Yuan, CEO of HealthMetrics
- You can learn more about HealthMetrics here.
- You can read our previous coverage on HealthMetrics here.
Featured Image Credit: Alvin Yuan (standing, middle, in black), CEO of HealthMetrics, and his team
