India's Practo Acquires Insta Health To Add Hospital Management Software Product

India's doctor-search startup Practo Technologies, which recently raised $90 million in funding led by Tencent Holdings Ltd., has acquired another local startup Insta Health Solutions for $12 million, to add Internet-based hospital information management software to its business.

Inventus Capital, which invested about $1 million in Insta Health in 2009, has made an exit through this deal, Samir Kumar, a managing director at the venture firm, told International Business Times. Insta Health was founded in 2008 by Ramesh Emani, who led the telecom services unit at Wipro Ltd., India's third-largest software services company.

Insta Health will operate as a separate division of Practo and Emani will continue to lead it, Practo's CEO Shashank N.D. said, in blog post Monday. From about 20 customers in 2009, Emani has built his startup to provide hospital information management software to about 500 hospitals, clinics and other healthcare clients in India, Southeast Asia, Middle East and Africa.

Practo provides a simple way for people to search for doctors on a mobile app or on their computers. It now gets the opportunity to sell its products and services to Insta Health's customers, and go after new clients with a broader portfolio of offerings. The company has raised close to $125 million to date in three rounds of funding, including an investment in his personal capacity by Russian billionaire Yuri Milner as part of the most recent fundraising round.

The company has been evaluating "several acquisitions," Shashank said, in the press release on his blog.

Digital health records are expected to remove wait times and queues, simplify payments and, on the whole, improve medical care. Insta Health's software is used by clinics, hospitals and diagnostic labs for automating their processes.