*Photo is just as an image, from a copyright-free space

Nikkei Sangyo Shimbun published on Tuesday 16th has reported the Indian startups including the company run by my ex-boss (but different from the company I was working for,) so today taking this opportunity I would like to introduce the summary of the article here.

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The first company is Healthians from Gurgaon, a health checkup service provider for busy urban people. 

Starting in February 2015, their users base has reached whopping 12,000 already, which mainly consists of corporates as well as the people who earn the middle-class income. One can simply access to Healthian services by making a phone call to specify the date and time for a checkup. Then the doctor visits the user's home, collects the blood sample and sends it to one of the associated diagnostic laboratories. The user can check the result on the same day from its smartphone. The company hires around 50 medical professionals and associates with 350 diagnostic laboratories in and around Delhi to respond to requirements as quick as possible.

Pricing of the service is competitive. For example, the cost for a whole body checkup, including hepatic function and blood glucose level, is as low as 899 INR, which is about 30% of the conventional fee charged at a hospital. "Hospital fee is expensive because it includes marketing expenses and kick-back to the physician from diagnostic laboratories," Deepak Sahni (Age 35), the CEO of company states.

India pays the price of rapid economic growth in the form of her people's health; increasing number of Indians suffer from the lifestyle-related disease. Particularly, the Westernized eating habits trigger the ever increasing diabetic patients that count 69.2 million, the world's second worst after China. 

Taking this momentum, another medical equipment venture company Jana Care from Bangalore has developed a cost-competitive (50 USD per unit) diabetes testing equipment "Aina." Just by inserting Aina into your smartphone and with a drop of blood on the test paper, one can know the reference value to judge the risk of diabetes. Last fall, Aina was authorized as a medical equipment in India to be sold to hospitals and pharmacies. The cost for a checkup is less than 1 USD, which is 10% of existing home-use checkup equipment. "Of course there is a large market; moreover, I want to resolve the problem my country has," Sidhant Jena (Age 32), the graduate of Harvard Business School explains his motive of launching the business. 

Pollution is another area to cope with the economic growth, and thus a significant number of startups are born in this area also. One of such company is Kankyo Cleantech started by Chellappa Sriram (Age 44) from Chennai, who had worked for an Indian IT company as a Japan market representative for about 20 years. The company looks for Japan's environment-related technologies that can be used to save India, such as the power generator fueled by industrial residue, discharged water, and municipal waste. Associating with several relevant Japanese companies, Kankyo Cleantech aims to bring Japanese technology to India while building the affordable products suit to the market. 

Another environment related Indian startup is Sarvajal from Ahmedabad. The company has developed water purification systems and automatic waterers managed by cloud technology, for the people in rural areas and slums to access the safe drinking water. Sarvajal currently serves for 100,000 people in six Indian states every day. 

Fast economic growth attracts more companies to India, which drives the high demands for protecting the safety of expatriates and local employees. 

Smartcloud Infotech from Pune has launched "SmartCommute," the bus transport service for corporates to ensure their employees' commuting safety. Using the global positioning system (GPS) equipped with a smartphone, the control room at the headquarters monitors the locations of vehicles and where the employees of client's company get on or off real-time. In a case of any accident or trouble occurs, the system immediately reports to the police or ambulance. 

The number of rape cases reported in India in 2014 was 37,000. Indian companies are obliged to arrange the transportation for their employees who work in night shifts. While most of IT and BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) companies with 1,000 or more employee bases entrust the commuting bus service to the third parties, how to manage it had been a key concern. 

SmartCommute tracks passengers and vehicles based on GPS, thus, it becomes easy for a company to know which employees delay by how much time due to the traffic congestions. The company runs the service in three cities in India, including Pune and Delhi, for 3,000 employees of five companies. Among their customers, NTT Data India is also listed. 

The market size for the commuting vehicle service in India is estimated around 6 billion USD. "For any company, ensuring the safety of employees is a critical management concern," Ajit Patil (Age 44,) one of the founder members of Smartcloud Infotech, states.

Social problems triggered by the rapid growth can happen in any countries after India. Therefore, the business models cultivated and developed by Indian venture companies will be surely useful for many other countries in across the globe in the future.

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*Read full article in Japanese here (the original image will open in a separate window by clicking it): 

Nikkei Sangyo Shimbun on 16th February 2016  (source: Mr. Nitin D)