Healthcare edtech startup Virohan raises $7M led by Blume Ventures

Healthcare edtech startup Virohan has raised $7 million in a pre-Series B1 round led by Blume Ventures with participation from Bharat Inclusion Seed Fund, Rebright Partners and Lesing Artha Limited including $500K from Harshvardhan Rajgarhia as part of Lets Venture, ALES Japan, Shantanu Jain (Managing Director, JP Morgan Chase – Singapore), Deepa Bagla Financial Consultants and others. This brings the total capital raised till date to USD 11million.

Virohan is a healthcare edtech platform through which trains students in Allied Healthcare Programs (AHP). AHPs are technicians in the healthcare industry who form 60% of the healthcare workforce and include technicians like Phlebotomist, Medical Lab Technicians, Operating Theatre Technicians, etc. 

As per BCG-Niti Ayog report (link), India faces an acute shortage of AHP technicians with an existing gap of ~5 million workers and estimated gap of 35M by 2028. Virohan has trained 7000+ students across its courses which has seen >96% completion rates and >98% placement rates within one month of program completion. It works with 1000+ partners such as Fortis Escorts, 1MG, Dr. Lal Path Labs, Sarvodaya Healthcare, Healthians, etc to help students get internships and job offers.   

With this fundraise Virohan is aiming to expand to 200+ new campuses Pan-India, and training 7000+ students. The company is also planning to use new funds to develop and launch new training programs, scale its omnichannel training platform infrastructure and content in vernacular languages along with developing new features to further increase learning outcomes for students. This funding will also help the company to expand to Japanese markets with the support from its existing investors ALES, and Rebright Partners. 

Virohan was founded in 2018 by Kunaal Dudeja, Nalin Saluja and Archit Jayaswal who come with strong backgrounds in retail, sales, technology, product development and finance.

Kunaal Dudeja, Cofounder & CEO, Virohan, said, “Given the growing importance of Allied Healthcare workforce in overall healthcare delivery and as India continues to face a challenge in terms of the quality of AHP, at Virohan our vision has always been to train AHPs keeping industry demand and requirement at the forefront. This investment is a testament of our product-market fit, scalability, impact and profitability of the business model. In the next 18 months Virohan will deepen its relationship with its stakeholders (Students, Universities/Colleges & Medical institutions), train over 10,000 students, and establish an international presence to cater to $100B+ global opportunity.”  

Sajith Pai, Blume Ventures, added, “Doing well, and doing good, are values that inspire Blume deeply, and at the core of why we exist. And that is why we have resonated so readily with Virohan and its mission. We have always seen Indian education as being a key engine of catalyzing the nation’s development. Equally, education can also help leapfrog social classes and economic cohorts. Hence, we have consistently bet on education startups lowering barriers for access and expanding opportunities to all. This is why we are excited to partner with Virohan, for its ambition and mission to skill and upgrade the next hundred million Indians.” 

“Over the coming decade, India needs to vastly expand its healthcare ecosystem. We are excited to back Virohan’s vision of an inclusive platform of creating new learning centers, training programs and job placement opportunities for allied healthcare professionals,” mentioned Brij Bhasin, Rebright Partners.

“This marks our third investment in Virohan since 2020, and we are confident in the company’s ability to drive both financial and social returns. We believe Virohan’s innovative solutions will be instrumental in meeting the growing demand for certified AHPs in India and supporting the success of healthcare professionals in their careers. We are pleased to support the continued growth and development of Virohan and look forward to seeing the positive impact it will have on the industry and communities it serves”, added Claudius Gutemann, Artha Impact. 
Ashwin Raguraman, Co-founder & Partner, Bharat Fund, said, “The severe shortage in healthcare workers came to the fore during the pandemic but continues to remain a persistent problem for several decades now. Virohans efforts in providing high quality training to these professionals through a highly scalable model that blends both digital, which provides access to high quality educators, and classroom/hospital experience, which is an inherent need in this space, promises to solve this problem. Virohan’s offering, sitting at the intersection of healthcare and education, is working well to solve this problem, and we are delighted to partner with the team, who have already demonstrated strong execution capabilities, to help bring high quality healthcare to India.”