Satish Kannan is the CEO and co-Founder at DocsApp, an online doctor consultation app to consult specialist doctors on chat or phone call, privately and securely without the need to book an appointment.
Education
Satish Kannan was born in 1990. Kannan graduated with a bachelor’s and master’s degree in electrical engineering at Indian Institute of Technology Madra.
Early career
Kannan served at Philips Healthcare, where he was involved in the R&D on large machines used by ortho specialist doctors and cardiologists for conducting surgeries. With a mission to deliver quality healthcare easily obtainable to all, Kannan quit his career at Philips Healthcare. In late 2013, Kannan co-founded Phasorz Technologies Private Limited to build a mobile app that would connect patients to specialist doctors.
DocsApp
Satish Kannan and with Enbasekar Dinadayalane started working on the concept in 2013 and figured that many of the health issues existing in the present day can be diagnosed and treated online. After two years, the two launched DocsApp in public. Kannan and Dinadayalane saw that WhatsApp was very popular among patients and doctors and leveraged the opportunity to mimic WhatsApp in healthcare; hence, they name the mobile app, DocsApp.
Kannan and Dinadayalane were classmates at Institute of Technology Madras. DocsApp is a mobile platform where anyone from India can consult within 30 minutes to a specialist M.D. Doctors in various specializations through call or chat from the location of their convenience.
DocsApp’s platform goes a step further in understanding the patient’s health condition and connects with the right doctor accordingly. DocsApp is an ISO Certified that allows every patient consults specialist doctors over chat or call round-the-clock. Consultations beyond 18 principal disciplines, including gastroenterology, dermatology, cardiology, gynecology, diabetes, orthopedics, psychiatry, oncology, general medicine, pediatrics, and neurology are available.
Kannan has observed a 30% month-on-month growth in various consultations in 2016. The company has a pan-India range with significant users in rural areas. To increase on figures, DocsApp approaches to family and friends through users who have been served by DocsApp. Kannan and his marketing teamwork on advertisements to develop awareness about various health concerns.
DocsApp has reported five million-plus downloads from Android and is the 4th app in the ‘Medical’ category of Google Play Store. In 2017, Facebook and Amazon acknowledged DocsApp as the No. 1 Medical App of the Year. In 2018, the platform crossed a million in consultations. DocsApp is striving to reach five million by 2020.
In the last quarter of 2018, DocsApp introduced web-based consultation for the users in tier 3 and 4 cities of India, who may not be familiar with the thought of mobile applications. DocsApp has eliminated the need for using its mobile app by giving easy-to-use web service. DocsApp was part of the Healthcare Startup Watchlist of Inc42 in 2019.
DocsApp has 132,785 app downloads monthly. DocsApp is serving 7,000 patients daily and has a pool of 5,000 doctors, which approximately 400 are specialists.
DocsApp has developed five languages interfaces and believes that phone calls, text chat, and video, with a specialist doctor, are very crucial for the patient. The team intends to expand the number of doctors on the platform to 20,000 and deliver high-quality healthcare available to everyone across India. DocsApp is going after 430 million Indians, who still live in small towns.
Funding rounds
In April 2016, DocsApp raised $1.2 million in a seed round from investors led by Japanese venture capital firm Rebright Partners. Early Facebook investors Venky Harinarayan and Anand Rajaraman also invested in this round. The Indian Institute of Technology Madra Incubation Center and other top angel investors like Rajesh Sawhney of GSF Accelerator, Anupam Mittal of Shaadi.com, Vijay Shekhar Sharma of Paytm, and Srikanth Sundararajan of Helion were also investing in the company. The startup used the funds to grow its operations, recruit talent, and develop the technology.
In December 2017, DocsApp raised $7.2 million in a Series A round, led by Bessemer Venture Partners, with participation from previous investors Rebright Partners, Anand Rajaraman, and Venky Harinarayanan. Other investors include Techmatrix Corporation and DeNa networks also participated in this round. Investment bank Masterkey was the advisor to this deal.
In May 2019, DocsApp raised ₹120 million in a debt financing round, led by InnoVen Capital. The capital will originally be used to increase DocsApp presence over India and also for its growth efforts.
DocsApp has raised a total of $10.1 million in funding rounds, and is funded by seven investors. DocsApp has $2 million in estimated revenue annually. DocsApp competes with LYBRATE, Practo, and First Opinion.