Internet penetration, government initiatives and investment in the healthcare sector has catapulted innovation and growth in the digital health segment in the past decade or so, and lockdown-induced restrictions further strengthened industry sentiment as the pandemic triggered mass acceptance for the medium. Owing to promising growth in the digital healthcare infrastructure, the investment in healthcare innovation has increased from $2 billion in 2011 to $44 billion invested in 2021.

However, access to affordable and effective health is still a massive problem, especially for netizens residing in tier II & tier III cities. Moreover, health insurance do not offer holistic coverage for various different ailments, making the opportunity to avail healthcare facilities even more difficult.

Born with the mission to address the gaping hole in the healthcare financing system, Kenko is the first-of-its-kind one-stop, tech-powered platform that provides healthcare services and financing in a single package. The founding members conceptualized Kenko to integrate healthcare financing with deliveries and book facilities, building a marketplace to cover complete medical expenses and needs.

3Kenko is a brainchild of talented duo Dhiraj Goel and Aniruddha Sen, who together bring in a total work experience of more than 35 years in the corporate sector. Where Aniruddha Sen has worked extensively in hospitality sectors, Dhiraj is a certified actuary with more than two decades of experience in underwriting. During their work experience, they realized that there is a

gaping hole in the healthcare finances, and therefore conceptualized Kenko - a subscription-based service that covers health expenses across OPD and hospitalization.

Reimagining Healthcare Expenses & Coverage
Frustrated with the existing gaps in the segment, Dhiraj and Aniruddha got committed to revolutionizing healthcare financing through Kenko. The team at Kenko realized that conventional health packages remained unutilised in the long run as they are not inclusive of OPD expenses, and almost 70 percent of lifetime healthcare expenses are incurred on the outpatient department costs.

Hence using the power of data-driven insights, Kenko focuses on providing super-low monthly plans that cover a wider base of expenses including medicines, doctor fees, lab tests, mental health, dental care and OPD hospital bills. Talking about how Kenko makes access to healthcare easier for patients, Dhiraj mentions, "Not only healthcare providers have jargon-ridden lengthy and tiresome paperwork but also long waiting periods before the benefits kick in.

Therefore in addition to the paperwork being difficult for the consumer to understand, if anything happens during the waiting period, it isn't covered. We tried addressing both the issues with Kenko. Using AI and Machine learning for underwriting, not only have we eliminated cumbersome paperwork but also ensured that insurance benefits kick in from day one".

Kenko was conceptualized to integrate healthcare financing with deliveries and book facilities, building a marketplace to cover complete medical expenses and needs

Journey Ahead
The subscription based healthcare platform has managed to show promising results in less than 3 years of inception. Generating their primary revenue through subscriptions, Kenko is able to clock in close to 5 crores in revenue per month. With over 1.5L lives under care, more than 200 corporate clients, and over 1,000 OPD orders handled per month, Kenko is showing a promising growth of 2X MOM and is looking to close this financial year with 4 lakh lives under care.

Talking about the future plans of the firm, Aniruddha says, “We are now working on growing our recently launched marketplace - Shoho. Additionally, we envision expanding our offerings regarding our healthcare services to help users access more straightforward and affordable medical services without using ten different apps. With this aim in mind, we are creating new partnerships and tieups in distribution, product enhancement, OPD services, Computer Vision/AI capabilities, and more".