Piyush Pratik

Great point in a recent Newcomer Substack from Sriram Mani that’s worth highlighting, not breezing past: Dual valuation deals are very hard on new employees. Anyone hired after a round has their 409a impacted by that round. A second, sometimes smaller but higher priced round creates a price floor for your employees, making your hiring currency less valuable. Private company stock is the biggest source of wealth creation for tech employees, and employees are savvier than ever about how it works. One of the biggest benefits of taking money from top tier investors is the access to talent that it opens up. Great people want to work for companies that are backed by great investors. You get the signal from the round, but burn the upside for your employees (and risk losing great talent to companies with more valuable options). You’re better off spacing out your rounds and launching a hiring cycle in between, so you can get the best talent and reward them well. In the long run, you’ll maximize your valuation far more by being a talent magnet who makes employees rich than by simply optimizing for a moment in time.

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Over 11,000 healthtech startups have launched in India since 2014, and yet, funding continues to tell a different story. In 2024, the sector raised just $0.7 billion across 78 deals. Even in Q1 of 2025, of the $301 million raised, nearly all came from a single $275 million round by Innovaccer. The shortage of capital has early-stage innovators struggling to succeed. The potential is immense, but unless we nurture a wider base of startups with sustained domestic capital, India risks missing the healthtech opportunity. #Healthtech #Funding #Startups #Innovation

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The problem with healthcare in India is not the ecosystem. It’s our mindset as consumers. We want access to specialized care: physicians, nutritionists, physios, strength coaches, mental health counselors, diagnostics, care coordinators - but we expect it to cost the same as a single doctor visit. And for years, startups have reinforced this mindset. They matched “affordability” with unsustainable discounts, heavily subsidised by external capital. But real healthcare is not one service. It is layers of people, expertise, time, and protocols. Just like you don’t go to a restaurant and pay for only the appetizer while expecting a full multi-course meal - you can’t expect complete chronic-care management for the price of a one-time consult. This is why India’s health outcomes are stuck: We have normalized reactive care (show up when it’s too late) because proactive, continuous care “feels expensive”. Until the emergency arrives - and suddenly the ₹300 consult mindset becomes a ₹3–5 lakh hospital bill. If we truly want to fix healthcare in India, we have to change how we value it: Continuous care needs teams, not individuals. Prevention requires protocols, not prescriptions. Real improvement requires consistency, not discount coupons. Healthcare is not broken because of doctors or hospitals. It’s broken because we’ve been taught to undervalue everything between them. And unless we shift that mindset, India will keep paying more for emergencies than we ever invest in prevention. This is exactly why we are building Praan Health — a continuous, multi-layered care system for chronic conditions that is sustainable, outcomes-driven, and honest about the cost of quality care. #HealthcareIndia #ChronicCare #PreventiveCare #ContinuousCare

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