Practo elevates senior executive Siddhartha Nihalani as Co-founder

Siddhartha Nihalani

Healthcare company Practo, on May 2, announced the elevation of its long-term executive and growth head, Siddhartha Nihalani to the position of Co-founder. Nihalani, a part of the Practo team since its inception, has been a driving force behind the technology, growth, and business strategy.

According to the company’s release, in the new role, Nihalani will focus on building products for Practo’s digital-first surgery business. In addition, he will work towards new product development that will help Practo provide affordable healthcare to over a billion Indians. Along with this, he would also work with Practo’s core leadership on business strategy and expansion.

“I have always believed in our collective vision and hope that in my new role, I’m able to fast-track the growth for the organization as we continue to innovate and bring new products that simplify healthcare for one and all,” Nihalani said.

Earlier, Nihalani has worn many hats at the healthcare startup working across functions of design, engineering, and product management. With this elevation, he will accompany Shashank ND and Abhinav Lal, the other co-founders, who started the company back in 2008.

According to the company’s release, Nihalani began his professional journey with Practo, straight out of college as a Mechanical engineer from the National Institute of Technology, Karnataka (NITK) Surathkal where Shashank and Lal were his batchmates.

Shashank said, “We have expanded greatly across products and geographies in recent years, with major launches like Practo Prime, Health Plans, and Practo Care Surgeries, all spearheaded by Siddhartha. In more than 12 years at Practo, he rose through the ranks strengthening product, engineering, growth, and expansion.”

“Siddhartha’s passion for engineering and coding helped us create breakthrough products. His knowledge and experience in the product development space have allowed us to think big and build a quality Practo suite of products… With him as a fellow co-founder, we aim to chart new growth for Practo as we advance towards complete digitization of the Indian healthcare sector,” added Lal.

Bengaluru-based Practo is an integrated healthcare company that interconnects the health ecosystem including patients, doctors, hospitals, pharmacies, and diagnostics. It integrates different parts of the patients' healthcare from primary healthcare, finding and booking an appointment with verified doctors to consulting doctors online.

Practo also makes software products that help healthcare providers, ranging from small clinics to large hospitals, digitise and deliver healthcare facilities to patients around the world.

The healthcare startup is present in more than 20 countries, helping over 30 crore patients, and connecting them with verified doctor partners.

To date, Practo has raised $228.2 million in seven funding rounds. In August 2020, it received a $32 million Series D round led by Hong Kong-based AIA Group.

Interestingly, Practo is not the only company to elevate a senior executive to the founder position. The move to elevate a top executive to founder is a growing trend among Indian start-ups, to reward talent and recognise core members of the team.

Last year, ahead of its IPO, Zomato elevated Aakriti Chopra to the co-founder position. In addition, Rebel Foods elevated five senior executives, Sagar Kochhar, Raghav Joshi, Ankush Grover, Ankur Sharma, and Soumyadeep Barman as co-founders, last year saying it had room for more. These executives earlier held the positions of Global Chief Marketing Officer, Chief Executive of India Business Unit, Chief Executive of South East Asia, Head of Product and Supply Chain, and Chief Technology Officer, respectively.