Turning The Tables

A number of health care startups has innovated to turn the tough business climate to their advantage

- NAINI THAKER

The Covid-19 outbreak has brought untold miseries to many businesses, but the health tech landscape has grown through it, devising ingenious mechanisms and technologies to fight the public health crisis. According to DataLabs by Inc42+’s ‘India’s Healthtech Landscape In A Post-Covid-19 World Report 2020’, the size of the health tech market in India is likely to touch $21 billion by 2025.

While the lockdowns restricted the availability of raw materials, broke the supply chain, and made labour scarce, a number of healthtech startups augmented or revamped their existing resources to fight Covid-19. Take for instance, Pune-based Marut Dronetech’s drones that were reengineered to help with disinfection and surveillance across 19 districts in Telangana, or Bengaluru-based Invento Robotics that launched two robots and also raised ₹2 crore in the process. Here’s a look at five such startups:

Invento Robotics

By December 2019, Bengaluru’s Invento Robotics was set to open its first global office in Suzhou, China, and in January, Balaji Vishwanathan, its founder, was scheduled to travel to China to start operations. Then the pandemic hit.