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According to the founder of Singapore-based telehealth platform Ora, 90% of its patients are under the age of 39 and have not been treated offline. That puts Aura on to make sure her patients, mostly millennials who live in cities, have a great experience. Ora wants to venture into verticals that focus on specific health issues such as women’s and men’s health and skin care. They run an end-to-end platform that handles everything from consultation to order delivery and aftercare.
Today, Ora announced it has raised $10 million in Series A funding, the largest telehealth Series A round in Southeast Asia. The investment was led by TNB Aura and Antler with participation from Gobi Partners, Kairus Capital and GMA Ventures.
This is the year 2020 brings Ora’s total raised since its inception to $17 million. Ora was founded by Elias Pour, former CMO of Zalora, and claims to have seen consistent >20% month-on-month growth since its launch last year.
Poore told TechCrunch that while working at Zalora, customers were driven by fashion purchases to express themselves when they invest in looking good, things that make them feel good, such as skin, hair, weight and overall well-being. He started looking for unexpected parts and found a great opportunity in health care.
Elias Afesa, founder and CEO of Ora
Southeast Asia has one of the highest out-of-pocket health costs globally, so behavior change was not needed to convince people to switch to direct payments, Poore added. “People are used to paying out-of-pocket for their health care costs, a category that fits DTC as well.”
Ora Since its launch in 2021, it has done more than 250,000 doctor consultations, she said. It has an end-to-end model, meaning it covers consultation, pharmacy, drug supply and post-purchase care. Ora generates revenue through subscriptions, which account for more than 70% of its revenue.
Ora is vertically integrated, and currently operates three brands. The first, called Modules, focuses on online dermatology consultations and prescription skin care. The second, and Sons, deals with male health care, and the third, Ova, deals with female reproductive health care.
The platform mainly caters to young customers. According to the company, 90% of patients who were first diagnosed were under the age of 38 and had never been treated online before. Younger patients require flexibility and speed, which is why the Aura telemedicine model is attractive to them.
One of the challenges facing health care providers in Southeast Asia is the “large disconnect between the patient population and the health care experience,” he said. He believes that in the next decade, 80 percent of healthcare services will come online.
Today, men and women in their 20s and 30s living in major cities represent 36 percent of the population. It is the fastest growing segment, predicted to represent half the population in most markets by 2030,” he said. “Forging a strong relationship with them at this early stage, building trust, will continue to be important to meeting their health care needs as they age,” added Poore.
Pour said Ora is different from other telehealth players like Doctor Anywhere, Spidoc and Allodoctor because it focuses on specific health issues. Ora combines prescription, OTC and solid consumer products to provide post-treatment care and clinical continuity.
Ora’s new funding will be used to expand into new markets and bring its brands to more than 1,300 retail stores.
In a statement, TNB Ora founding partner Charles Wong said, “[Ora’s] With unique, and often restricted, healthcare verticals and a direct-to-patient approach, the group has clearly distinguished itself while delivering market-leading segment economics that meet the needs of patients across the entire value chain.
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