In just four years, Zorgers, the home healthcare startup has recorded more than 7.5 million hours of caregiving and is now eyeing expansion across 50 plus Indian cities by 2025. Varun Gupta, Founder & CEO, Zorgers Home Healthcare, speaks about how they intend to create value for all in an interaction with Raelene Kambli
What is Zorgers’ core business area in healthcare? Who are your funders?
Zorgers caters across a basic level of caregiving — called assistant living or companionship — for dependent elders and children to advanced services like intensive care setups at home for bedridden patients. We are three founders in the journey, myself, Anil Kumar (COO) and Abhinav Gupta ( CTO). We started with this vision to organise the home healthcare service space. Finding a trustworthy and skilled caregiver near you with continuity of care is never easy.
Our target audience is mostly dependent elders, who may or may not be living alone, newborns and new mothers, bed-ridden patients, patients recently discharged from hospitals, and patients suffering from chronic illness who require on-demand support.
Caregiving is at the heart of our business, which means caregivers are the most important part of our business. The way we hire, train, and engage them on a day-to-day basis and, most importantly, retain them defines the success of Zorgers.
With a combined array of services, we are striving towards value creation, not just for healthcare professionals but also for the society and their clients. Our goal is to cater to the needs of half a million clients by 2025 and improve our gross total transaction value from Rs 150 million to Rs 7.5 billion by 2025.
What is your revenue model?
As a service provider, we make 25 per cent as gross margin in all billed transactions, and as an aggregator, we charge a success fee for all matured transactions.
Why did you choose to headquarter in Mohali?
We are based in Mohali, a city that is a part of the Punjab Tricity (Chandigarh, Panchkula, Mohali). This gives it a vantage point in terms of operating across Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, and Delhi-NCR. Incidentally, these regions are witnessing a high rate of migration. They are also home to one of the largest affluent income groups in India, making Mohali the ideal place to pilot the business idea, the co-founder explains.
Our focus area is Tier II and III towns from where people mostly migrate to metros and Tier I cities. In this case, our consumers are in Tier II and III India, but buyers are in metros and Tier I or even NRIs.
Share your growth plan for 2020?
We intend to be present in 15+ cities with a key focus on Tier 2 and Tier 3. We will help 75000 plus families in the journey with a team of 25000 plus caregivers
How has Zorgers created 3000 plus Jobs for in healthcare?
We are providing employment opportunities to the youth who is interested in caregiving as a profession. There are detailed skill set and soft skill training (3-5 weeks) that we impart before deputing them for a job. We have three start-of-the-art training centres in Mohali, Ludhiana and Jalandhar. All these 3000 plus caregivers are part of the journey where we have helped 10000 plus families.
You say that Zorgers’ intends to create at least one million jobs by the end of 2025. Can you explain your plan for the same? How will skilling add value to your home- healthcare business?
Home healthcare is all about quality and continuity of care. We treat caregivers as partners in the journey. The success of our business model is purely linked to how well we hire, train and retain caregivers. The vision of one million jobs is in line with our vision to be present in 50 plus cities in India and helping half a million families. Quality of caregiving can only be achieved by constant investment in skilling.