Qualcomm Ventures Continues Investment In Portea Medical

Quick Take

Qualcomm Ventures (QCOM) has participated in the latest funding round for fast-growing Portea Medical.

Portea is developing a platform to provide a range of home-based healthcare services to the India market.

Qualcomm’s follow-on investment in Portea is part of a wider interest in growing India-based, mobile-enabled startups that are catching QCOM’s eye.

Investee Company

Bengaluru, India,-based Portea was founded in 2013 to expand medical care from the hospital to the home.

Management is headed by co-founder and CEO Meena Ganesh, M.D., who was previously CEO of Edurite Technologies and HSC Tesco.

Below is a brief video about Portea’s approach to home healthcare:

(Source: Portea)

Portea’s main offerings include the following:

• Physiotherapy
• Lab Tests
• Nursing Services
• Doctor Consultations
• Medical Equipment
• Vaccination
• Pharmacy
• Baby and Mother Care

Users can also book appointments with doctors.

Portea says that it has more than 250,000 customers to date.

Investment Terms and Rationale

Along with Qualcomm, other investors in the current $26 million Series C round included lead investors Sabre Partners and MEMG CDC, as well as Accel Partners and International Finance Corp. Sabre is an India-based private equity firm that specializes in middle market investments.

Valuation was not disclosed. Portea has now raised more than $72 million in funding since its first round of funding late 2013.

Qualcomm previously invested in Portea in its second round of funding in late 2016.

QCOM has been a very active corporate investor in technology startups, investing in at least 200 companies since inception.

The graphic below shows its investment history by various metrics (click to enlarge),

(Source: Mattermark)

The data indicate that Qualcomm invests at all stages of startup development and in a wide variety of industries, from its core Mobile industry to Security, Enterprise Software, Healthcare and Marketing.

QCOM is fairly distributed in its geographic focus, more so than many other corporate investors. Notably, it is almost evenly distributed between B2B and B2C business model interest.

Its investment in Portea would be a B2C model within the healthcare space. Healthcare is perhaps a less obvious investment focus for Qualcomm. However, based on its history, the geographic focus of Portea within India may be a more relevant lens within which to view QCOM’s interest.

Qualcomm is quite active investing in a range of technology or technology-enabled industries in India, which it likely views as a major growth market in the decades ahead.

The ventures group appears to be similar in investing style to that of Intel Capital (INTC), in that it spreads its bets across a number of industries that can be impacted by its core competence in mobility.

Whether it’s electronic hardware, mobile, security or healthcare, I expect that QCOM will continue to invest in India-based firms assuming the investment group doesn’t get put on hold as a result of Broadcom’s (AVGO) interest and potential acquisition.

I write in-depth research about IPOs at IPO Edge. I also write about M&A deals and public company investments in technology startups. Visit IPO Edge to learn about the latest IPO research and IPO market trends.