Women’s Health – A Massive Whitespace To Solve For

We at Kae are bullish about women’s health and feel large companies can be built out of India.

Women’s health is a pressing need in the Indian healthcare market

It is no secret that the Indian healthcare infrastructure is broken – issues include poor doctor-to-patient ratios, low healthcare/GDP spending, and poor geographic and cost accessibility across the board. These problems further complicate matters for the very critical, yet underserved women of the Indian population.

There is a pressing need for women-centric solutions across multiple verticals like nutrition, sexual and reproductive health, dermatology, and mental health, with existing legacy alternatives being subpar on multiple fronts – stigma, lack of personalized care and outcome-driven thinking have created a gaping trust void.

Why now? – Women’s health stands out as an opportunity to build loyalty through online communities

Over the last few years, women have increasingly come to rely on online channels for most of their health needs as is indicated by the sharp rise in in-bound queries (>100% YoY increase) on both Practo and Google.

All the urban women we spoke to rely on a set of digital communities for their personal health needs – and there has been an increase in the number of such groups in recent times – the plethora of new WhatsApp and Instagram groups are testament to the inherent virality that women’s communities have.

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The TAM is large enough to capture the value and build out a venture-scalable business

As VC investors we are on the constant lookout for large monetizable spaces – so it is critical to target those TGs which have a consistent spending capacity with the right hook.

Much like other Indian consumer markets – the majority of the paying capacity lies in Metros and Tier-1 cities. Basis our own research by speaking to potential customers and founders alike – there exists a very high willingness to pay – with the minimum ticket size going upwards of INR 1k per month on average. Our confidence lies in the precedence of women paying periodically for both products – like pads and consumables as well as much higher ticket size procedures and services like laser hair removal, which generates a semi-annual spend of around INR 50k+ easily. Many of the recurring spending categories are must-haves for women.

Most tech solutions today are community and content led, with a paid conversion to a full stack primary care and telemedicine/teleconsult layer with products/tests or procedures on the back to monetize – we believe a sustainable business model in currently available tech platforms will be built on the back of an e-commerce platform to maximise for spend per acquired customer.

We believe the market is ripe to crack the right core customer and hit product and channel fit

The personas in this market are large enough to build out a scalable business – be it a working professional, a homemaker or student to hit PMF. High NPS and customer delight are all about solving for the best value proposition/solution for your niche and this is a question which is very much open to debate with no wrong or right answers.

The niche here we believe will depend on the stage of life the customer is in, and we believe the best way is to look at it as follows –

• 25-35 – issues may range from PCOS, irregular periods, skin and hair, etc.

• 35-45 – issues may be pregnancy-focused, fertility-related, etc.

• >45 – issues may be around menopause, skin, etc.

For each phase of life, the core hooks may vary – from dermatology to reproductive health and fertility; this a question we would love for entrepreneurs to answer!

We are looking for a team that can crack the “trust” factor

Our belief is that unfair advantages will be built around trust and brand recall– most solutions in the market today are still fairly early in their journeys and are on the lookout for weak signals of a potential hockey-stick growth going forward built on deep engagement. We are actively on the lookout for teams with the best insight into building high-engagement communities.

If you have unique customer insight and demonstrated engagement/early indicators of engagement and are confident or even have the slightest inkling that you have cracked or are on route to cracking a scaleable trust-building playbook while offering personalised and empathetic solutions in a standardized manner – we would absolutely, positively love to hear from you – please do write to sarthak@kae-capital.com.

Team members handling this sector

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