In late May Russian insuretech leader BestDoctor closed a $26 million round with an impressive investor consortium. The money was brought in by Winter Capital, a Moscow-based international fund backed, in particular, by billionaire Vladimir Potanin; UNIQA Ventures, which is affiliated to a major Austrian insurance group owned by Raiffeisenbank; and VNV Global, a major Swedish VC firm.
The latter — previously known as Vostok New Ventures — is one of the most active Western investors in Russia. Its portfolio companies includes such companies as Doc+, Dostavista, Monopiliya, NaPopravku and OneTwoTrip. VNV also exited Russian classified giant Avito (sold for several billions of USD to Naspers), Ukrainian-Russian bus ticketing major Busfor (sold to BlaBlaCar) and Tinkoff Group, a huge Russian digital banking success.
The details of the transaction were not officially disclosed, but Forbes Russia reported a valuation of $90 million.
“Digital revolution” in health insurance
BestDoctor touts itself as “the first and fast-growing Russian medical insurance technology company offering high-tech insurance products for corporate clients.” Mark Sanevich and Mikhail Belyandinov, two of its founders, were ranked by Forbes in their “30 under 30” ranking for Russia in 2020.
That same year, BestDoctor’s revenue reached 1.7 billion rubles (nearly $25 million at the average exchange rate of 2020), reports Forbes Russia. The company now claims to serve some 140 companies — including such digital majors as AliExpress Russia, IVI, Mail.ru Group, MegaFon and Ozon — with a network of some 14,000 partnering medical organizations across Russia.
Combining “the classic benefits of voluntary medical insurance with a high-tech online service,” BestDoctor offers businesses an opportunity to provide medical services to their employees. Employers only pay for the medical services actually rendered to employees, which, as the startup claims, helps businesses save on insurance costs.
“Today, the health insurance industry is experiencing a digital revolution, as many services are moving online, which increases the convenience of their use and expands their availability to a huge number of users,” Forbes Russia quoted Anton Farlenkov, Managing Director of Winter Capital, as saying. “BestDoctor is at the forefront of this process, accelerating the transition of the health insurance industry to a more modern and qualitatively new level.”
This is BestDoctor’s fourth round of equity funding since inception in 2015: the startup raised $4.5 million in July 2020, $3 million in May 2019 and $500,000 in 2017.
