Healthtech startup Naluri raises US$1.5M from Oliver Samwer’s VC firm
Naluri, a Malaysia-based healthtech startup, has closed US$1.5 million in an oversubscribed pre-Series A round of funding, led by Global Founders Capital, a Berlin-based VC firm run by Rocket Internet Co-founder Oliver Samwer.
Stanford-StartX Fund, TH Capital, and private investors, including doctors as well as the startup’s existing investors, also participated, DealStreetAsia reported.
The money will help the firm plan its growth for the next 12 months. It will focus on expanding its user base, hiring senior staff, starting overseas teams, and to form partnerships with leading insurers, corporate employers, healthcare providers, and pharmaceutical companies.
Naluri was co-founded in 2017 by Azran Osman-Rani (CEO), who was the former chief of iflix Malaysia and AirAsia X Bhd, with medical doctors Jeremy Ting and Dr. Hariyati Shahrima.
The startup offers evidence-based health therapeutics digital care that combines behaviour science, data science, and digital design to intervene with patients or those at risk of diseases. With its software programs, it provides structured health coaching and psychological support for users to prevent, manage or treat a medical disorder or disease.
“We have seen about 60 per cent of our users achieve at least one clinically-significant health improvement that reduces the risks of diabetes or heart diseases by 30-50 per cent. Considering how our core clients decided to extend their partnership with us into phase 2 roll-outs, we have started work to extend our service to larger markets across Southeast Asia,” Co-founder Ting said.
“Outside the clinic or hospital, current healthcare services and wellness programs do not provide enough ongoing support. Most are only focussed on transactional, one-off consultation sessions, ignoring the tracking of clinically-significant health outcomes such as weight reduction, blood sugar, blood pressure, and cholesterol reduction, or quantifiable improvements in levels of depression, anxiety, and stress,” said Osman-Rani.
Previously, Naluri has raised US$242,800) seed funding from Singapore-based healthcare analytics company BioMark and 500 Startups’ Southeast Asia-focussed fund 500 Durians.