Sberbank, Russia’s national savings bank, has acquired a controlling stake (79.6%) in DocDoc.ru, a startup that helps users find doctors and set up medical appointments across 14 Russian cities.
The details of the deal have not been disclosed, but the bank has specified that the remaining shares belong to the founding and top management teams — which implies that the first investors (Guard Capital and Aurora Capital from previous rounds) made an exit from the startup.
DocDoc claims to have enrolled so far more than 31,000 physicians from 2,023 clinics and to have served more than 778,000 patients, up from 350,000 in March 2016.
With this acquisition, Sberbank is pursuing far-reaching goals. The bank, which aims to “build digital ecosystems to address the largest possible needs of customers,” sees in DocDoc’s platform the basis of “a full-fledged e-health platform.”
Such a platform would encompass telemedicine services, a medical card system, ordering of medicine, and other functionalities. It would gather patients, doctors, clinics, insurance companies, pharmacies and other players within “an open system” accessible beyond Sberbank’s sole client base.
The bank is also seeking to build a universal e-commerce platform covering Russia and neighboring countries.
