East Ventures Leads Series A Funding for Healthtech Startup Smarter Health

Smarter Health announced that it has secured a series A funding of S$ 5.15 million (approximately 54 billion Rupiah) led by East Ventures. The fresh funds will be used for product development and market expansion in Southeast Asia.

This round was also attended by other strategic investors, such as Orbit Malaysia, Citrine Capital, HMI Group, and EMTEK. The Smarter Health platform facilitates the secure exchange of data between insurance companies, healthcare providers, and patients.

This enables the use of data to guide patient decision-making, and increases the accuracy and speed of claims processing. Future developments will drive greater operational efficiency, effectiveness, and enhance customer security.

Having achieved promising traction in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Smarter Health is looking to further enhance and expand its market and suite of solutions.

“We are excited to partner with East Ventures and other strategic investors to realize our vision of becoming an ‘Easy to Access, Affordable and Accountable’ healthcare service,” said Smarter Health CEO Liaw Yit Ming in an official statement, Monday (3/1).

The company hopes to collaborate with more insurance companies, healthcare providers, and doctors to achieve this vision.

The Pandemic Has Forced Digital Acceleration

East Ventures Co-Founder & Managing Partner Willson Weather added, “The Covid-19 pandemic has forced insurance companies and healthcare providers to reconsider and restructure their operations strategies by accelerating digital transformation.”

Smarter Health is here to make healthcare accessible, affordable and accountable by providing an AI-operable platform.

“We are excited to support Smarter Health in resolving inefficiencies in the health care process between stakeholders in the health ecosystem,” said Willson.

One of Smarter Health’s solutions that can be accessed in Indonesia is the Second Medical Opinion service, which allows patients to get a complete overview of their medical condition from a collaborative network of specialist doctors carefully curated by Smarter Health.

These specialist doctors are from Singapore and have different medical specialties and disciplines. They practice in major private hospitals such as Elizabeth Novena Hospital, Mount Elizabeth Hospital, Gleneagles Hospital and others for a flat fee of S$250.

Indonesian patients will be scheduled for a 20-minute teleconsultation session and receive a written medical report from the selected specialist within five working days after the consultation session.

The Digital Transformation of the Healthcare Industry Is Becoming A Concern

The Ministry of Health publishes a roadmap contained in the blueprint for the transformation and digitization of the Indonesian health sector for the period 2021-2024.

There are three main agendas that are priorities for the Ministry, namely integration and development of data systems, service applications, and ecosystems in the field of health technology (healthtech).

The reason for launching this roadmap, apart from getting the right momentum because of the Covid-19 pandemic, is haunted by a number of big challenges. Among them, challenges in the data system and the unbalanced ratio of the number of health workers and room capacity to the total population.

Currently, there are hundreds of applications. Currently, there are hundreds of applications whose data management is still based on individual information. In government, there are more than 400 applications in the health sector, and this number does not include the regional level.

This is not to mention the medical records of 270 million Indonesians, which are not yet fully digital-based. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Health 2020 noted that the ratio of doctors reached 03.8 per 1,000 population, while the ratio of hospital beds was around 1.2 per 1,000 population in Indonesia.

The company has seen how the Covid-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on various things, including changing the way people consult.

“We have to start this transformation and focus on developing platforms and implementing collaborative initiatives with stakeholders. We hope to create a healthy Indonesia and create an integrated health platform,” said the Chief Digital Transformation Office of the Ministry of Health, Setiaji.