Thailand-based healthcare startup HD is setting its sights on transforming the fragmented medical industry in Southeast Asia through its innovative marketplace, HDmall. By 2025, the company aims to reach 5,000 healthcare providers and 600,000 patients across the region. Co-founder and CEO Sheji Ho describes HDmall as the "Amazon of healthcare," highlighting its commitment to digitizing healthcare services in a manner that empowers individuals to make informed choices about their health.
The startup has achieved a significant milestone by securing $7.8 million in equity funding, marking U.S. pharma giant Merck Sharp & Dohme's (MSD) first investment in a healthtech startup in the Asia Pacific region. This financial backing will enable HD to enhance its marketplace offerings and further invest in its AI technology. The platform currently boasts over 30,000 stock-keeping units (SKUs) from more than 2,500 hospitals and clinics, as well as pharmaceutical partners, generating $100 million in annual gross transaction volume with 400,000 paying customers in Thailand and Indonesia.
HD's expansion strategy includes entering new markets such as Vietnam and potentially Myanmar. These countries present opportunities due to their similar healthcare systems, characterized by high cash payments and a lack of a traditional family doctor system.
“Their healthcare model is quite similar in some ways to Mainland China. So it’s a high cash payment, around 40%. There is no family doctor system, so people go straight to hospitals or clinics; thereafter, government social security coverage comes into play,” – Ho
Operating with a vision to empower individuals in their healthcare decisions, HD seeks to offer an alternative to the Western family doctor system. The company's platform draws inspiration from a blend of Amazon One Medical in the U.S., Chinese outpatient healthcare platforms like JD Health and Alibaba Health, and the Indian inpatient healthcare platform Pristyn Care.
A key component of HD's success is Jib AI, an AI chatbot trained on anonymized healthcare product data, transaction data, and chat commerce datasets using advanced large language models. Jib AI plays a crucial role in assisting healthcare professionals by managing initial triaging and care navigation tasks, enabling doctors, nurses, and surgeons to focus on patient care.
“Almost 60% of customer interactions are managed by AI agents, which deliver high-quality, instant 24/7 response to customers,” according to Ho.
In addition to current functionalities, HD plans to expand the capabilities of its AI agent with features such as order and refund processing, assisted checkouts, scheduling, electronic health record checking, and medical information retrieval. These enhancements will be provided through the Jib AI Health Assistant and AI-powered asynchronous virtual care with expert physicians.
The company's approach contrasts with telehealth models that have faced challenges in Southeast Asia post-pandemic. As Ho points out:
“Post-pandemic, telehealth as a business model in SEA has encountered significant challenges and is rapidly losing favor among both consumers and investors.”
HD's B2C2B strategy targets a unique opportunity in Southeast Asia, leveraging consumer-to-business-to-business dynamics defined by Andreessen Horowitz.
“While US healthcare companies such as Transcarent and Accolade started directly with B2B care navigation, we see a unique opportunity in Southeast Asia to adopt a ‘B2C2B strategy’ as defined by Andreessen Horowitz,” – Ho
As part of its collaboration with Merck Sharp & Dohme, HD has also been involved in selling HPV vaccines online, administered at partner hospitals and clinics.
“MSD, which produces the HPV vaccines, reached out to [us] because we were already selling a lot of HPV vaccines online that were being administered at the hospitals and clinics we work with,” – Sheji Ho
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