A call between doctors can save lives. This is what Doxity founder Indranil Roychowdhury learned when his father was hospitalized in India with a life-threatening condition. An emergency room doctor initially told him there was no chance of survival, but another doctor called one of his colleagues in the United States and came up with an effective treatment plan. A document was created to help doctors collaborate in the same way even if they live in different countries.
The Singapore-based company announced today that it has raised $32 million in Series C funding of $44 million, led by return-to-investment investor Itoku Corporation. The rest of the round came from investors including IGlobe Partners, Alchemy, Global Brain, KDV and Infocomm.
Roychowdhury told TechCrunch that after his father’s experience, he and co-founders Amit Vital and Abhishek Wadwa were impressed that “in today’s day of social media, he had to make a phone call to save someone’s life.” Docs was founded in 2015 so doctors and other healthcare professionals have an easy way to work with each other.
The new capital brings Doxitin’s total revenue to $57.5 million. It claims to be the largest community of healthcare professionals in Southeast Asia with over 350,000 doctors. The funds will be used to grow Doxity in existing markets such as Indonesia and the Philippines and enter new ones including Japan, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. It recently launched in Taiwan, where more than 2,000 doctors have signed up. The company has projected double-digit revenue growth by 2021.
The company now has a team of 300 people and, in addition to its Singapore headquarters, has a technology and engineering center in Gurgaon, India, and other offices in Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam and Taiwan.
In addition to providing tools for doctors to connect and collaborate, Docquity has partnered with over 250 medical associations in Southeast Asia to develop learning modules to earn mandatory Continuing Medical Education (CME) credits. The company says the platform has enabled doctors to earn a total of 4.2 million CME credits to date.
Document has three main features. The first, Document Academy, has partnered with universities and top medical professionals to create learning tools for doctors. The second, Doctor’s Clinic, allows doctors to have a series of consultations with their patients. Finally, document insights take information about user engagement on the platform to understand what they need.
Roychowdhury said that on an average, about 50,000 doctors take courses on the platform every month, and the outbreak in 2018 He said he was one of the companies that launched online lectures and symposiums when it started in 2020. It now hosts about 500 talks a month. Doctors taking the courses can also join private groups to discuss real-world issues and best treatment plans.
“While teaching and testing is a key component of learning, we believe that the primary source of learning for doctors is experiential learning through peer-to-peer case discussions,” Roychowdhury said.
Documentation ensures patient privacy in several steps. It is a closed, GDPR and HIPAA compliant network that only admits doctors certified by medical associations. It also established an internal compliance and pharmacy collaboration team to ensure privacy and security. Pharmaceutical and medical device companies are allowed to connect with doctors, but no advertising is allowed on the platform.
Another document initiative is to make health care more affordable. It recently launched the Patient Attendance Program (PAP) to help doctors provide care to underserved patients. “Affordable access to treatments is the main objective of the platform and we have started working with our customers in breast cancer as a treatment space and have served nearly 600 breast cancer patients in the Philippines,” said Roychowdhury.
