Sandeep Bhatia is a debut entrepreneur who has founded HELO Health. He gained experience by spending 25 years in renowned organizations like Canon, Forbes & Philips. He has expertise in building teams and businesses from scratch to scale. Sandeep is now using his skills in the healthcare space. He had completed his B.E in Electrical and Electronics and later did a Strategic Leadership Program by IIM Bangalore.

Working in MNCs vs. Working in one’s own venture

Sandeep Bhatia begins, “I would like to break it up into 2 parts - why I began entrepreneurship and how it is different from working in an MNC. My main motivation behind a start-up was to give back to society. I realised that for that freedom and independence, I needed a venture of my own. So once my mind was set on being an entrepreneur, the question of what to do arose.”

“In the last decade, I had brought in a lot of innovative changes in the banking sector. That rich experience and research showed that retail and healthcare are 2 areas in this country that needed innovation on the customer experience side. I made the choice of healthcare for the obvious reasons, as we were then in the Covid times. It also married well with my desire to give back to the society.”

“A lot of investment has been done in healthcare information systems, healthcare management systems, strengthening backend and more. But enough has not happened on the frontend or the user experience side. So, I zoned in on customer experience and healthcare screening as a focus area. Where I felt I could make a difference using my experience.”

“The next question was whether the opportunity was big enough. So, I researched and came to an estimation that the health screening opportunity, a subset of health-tech opportunity, is worth US $1 billion in the next 5 years in India alone. I am talking about tangible opportunities for devices,  software and services. The scale of the opportunity and its connection with my wish to give back to society made me take the plunge as I turned 50.”

“Talking about MNCs, I would say that I have worked with MNCs all my life. These are great places to learn, perform, earn, and develop a worldview. My experience with MNCs has helped me think on a global scale. But having one’s own venture can be extremely challenging. Instead of the advantage of a big brand of an MNC, in the start-up space, you have to build your own brand. Here your company brand and personal brand all get merged with each other.”

About HELO Health

Sandeep Bhatia says, “Our mission is to democratise health screening as it is an area that is often ignored. this also delays diagnosis and treatments. If we only talk about India, healthcare access and its cost are issues. They are individual issues as well as a cause and effect of each other.”

“To cut down on this cost and time is the genesis of our offering. Presently we have a solution for corporate employees where they can get their health screening done. This helps them to check their temperature. There is also a face recognition algorithm that helps mark their attendance and regulates access to the premises. All this is a touchless operation.”

“In addition to this, we also have a solution for clients or hospitals to install at their front office to  help them manage their visitor experience. So, these are our present offerings.”

HELO Health’s USP

Sandeep Bhatia explains, “If I were to analyse the offerings of others and compare it to what we offer, then our USP is the completeness to our solution and the tightly integrated offerings. We don’t provide a small part of it but give the entire solution for health screening. We offer the devices, a reliable, scalable & secure SaaS platform, facial recognition, data analytics, and managed services. So, any client that ties up with us gets end-to-end services.”

Products in the Pipeline

Sandeep Bhatia adds, “I am excited to answer this question. If I were to define healthcare, it is the maintenance of health via prevention, diagnosis, treatments and cure of disease or illnesses in people. Now there lies a time gap between the occurrence of the illness and its diagnosis and treatment.” 

“Anyone with a health issue has to approach a doctor who would prescribe certain tests. This, in an urban area takes 24 to 48 hours before you go back to the doctor with test results to enable him to start treatment. In tier 2 and tier 3 areas, this also means traveling long distances, loss of wages and so higher cost. We are focused on bringing down this time to the minimum, few minutes instead of few days.”  

“We are building a solution for medical-grade accurate and portable health ATM. This will have a device for testing and will be able to give on the spot results for vitals, biochemistry, haematology, urine parameters and cardiac and inflammation markers. We are also building an integrated telemedicine app for users, doctors, and e-pharmacy services. So, we don’t want to only offer the devices but provide end-to-end delivery of services.”

“Another neglected area is health records. Today records are either unavailable or in disparate form even in urban areas. Even in my case, for my health records, I carry a file full of papers. So, when the prescription is to be given, they are either unavailable or lying in a file. We are building a repository for cloud-based health records. 

This system will of course use our face recognition algorithm, data analytics and we are focused on building an AI/ML based early warning system.”

“In effect, we are developing an end-to-end platform for users, healthcare providers and pharmacies. We will also enable online payment to help fulfillment of transactions. 

This system will make a difference in the quality of healthcare access and will also help expedite diagnosis and treatment. While it will improve the user experience in urban India, for rural India or Bharat, it would be the most pertinent solution.”

Funding for HELO Health

Sandeep Bhatia mentions, “We have been bootstrapped for a year. But we are looking to raise an angel funding of Rs 2 crores. We have planned and worked out the usage of funding.”

“There are 2 clear areas where we will use the funds. The first thing we would do is develop the portable health ATM solution. Another thing is we want to commercialize our existing health ATMs or health screening solution we have for corporates. And take this further to the rest of the country. So, these are the 2 areas our funds will be utilised - develop new solutions and commercialize our existing solution.”

HELO Health’s Customer Base

Sandeep Bhatia says, “In the last year we have done pilot sales of close to 30 units. Which is spread across 5 clients. If you had to ask me about the estimate of lives we have impacted, then it would be difficult for me to access. If I were to estimate a number based on the transactions, then I would say close to half a million transactions have been done on our devices.”

HELO Health’s Revenues

Sandeep Bhatia says, “Our pipeline is robust. We are a 1-year-old company, we were in existence for only 2 months in FY21. We had no revenues in FY21. In FY22, we expect to close at Rs 2 million in revenue. Along with an order book of a similar amount.”

HELO Health’s Goals

Sandeep Bhatia mentions, “Our goals are tough but straightforward. We plan to develop the portable health ATM solution. This is tough but we will conduct 5-6 pilots. Our second target is to commercialize our existing solution. Here, we are targeting 1000 units in sales in the next year. We would want to reach the top cities in India but as we expand, we would need a robust backend. So, we are looking to set up a helpdesk to manage services and a service management system. For transactions, we have taken up a target to reach a million transactions soon. Gradually we want to make this a monthly occurrence. Lastly, our aim is to make HELO Health a brand of choice for health screening.” 

(Edited by Priyal Shah)