Pune-based Vidcare Technologies, which offers point-of-care and consumer diagnostic testing, has raised $ 300K in a pre-seed round led by Social Alpha. Lavni Ventures and Derbi Foundation also participate in the round. The healthcare start-up will utilise the funds for further product development, clinical testing, real-world effectiveness and early commercialisation. 

The centralised nature of healthcare requires patients to travel to access it. This leads to inefficiencies, causing delayed testing and diagnosis and poor health outcomes.

Rohan Aggarwal, Karan Aggarwal and Saurabh Kumar Srivastava founded Vidcare in 2017 to eliminate the need to use any additional device or attachment to provide quantifiable results. It has developed its patented Mu-sure technology, a lab-on-a-chip platform, as an alternative to conventional methods to make diagnostic testing convenient for faster clinical decision-making. 

Rohan Aggarwal said that these funds would be used to complete product development and commercialisation post-regulatory approvals. Additionally, the company is working on additional applications for this technology. "Our vision is to use the Mu-sure platform to create diagnostic tests to ease access for a wide range of high-quality diagnostics to urban and rural areas," he said. 

He added that the company's first product focuses on testing hypothyroidism, a major health ailment that affects more than 150 million Indians. The first application of this technology is an affordable, self-administered hypothyroidism diagnosis test (TSH). It will be used during pregnancy for thyroid management in other hypothyroidism patients and screening for congenital hypothyroidism. 

Dr Kshama Kothari, Director–Health and Wellness, Social Alpha, said, "We are excited about the future of diagnostic medicine, particularly in the field of point-of-care diagnostics. We observe a gradual growth in the 'decentralisation' of laboratory tests, i.e., tests and analyses are being performed at the bedside, in-clinic, or by the patients themselves at home. Vidcare's expandable platform will create a portfolio of accurate, easy-to-use point of care quantitative tests for monitoring health and chronic disorders."

Vasu Guruswamy, Partner and Co-founder of Lavni Ventures, added, "The innovative and affordable Vidcare platform for point-of-care quantitative testing is expected to find application in diagnostic services for a wide range of healthcare problems. At Lavni Ventures, we find it particularly exciting that the deep technology-based Vidcare platform has a high potential for social impact in remote settings with low resources where skilled personnel may be hard to find"

Over the next five years, Vidcare intends to become a leading brand in the point-of-care and consumer diagnostics space in India and overseas, providing at-home tools to patients to monitor their existing health conditions or test for infections. "This will be achieved by developing a strong test portfolio coupled with a digital infrastructure to help consumers manage their conditions efficiently. Vidcare will also be focusing on making their products available to remote areas via partnerships with the public health systems, NGOs, and pharma companies," Aggarwal concluded.