The Reality Check: Why Insurance?
By early 2025, we had already explored AI in healthcare, HIMS, and Insurtech, but something still felt missing.
That's when we decided to go all-in on B2C Insurtech.
At first, this seemed like the perfect space. Health insurance is a huge industry, but full of inefficiencies.
We started studying the market, looking at:
But before diving into this world, we had to be clear on WHY we were doing it.
The answer? AI and data.
AI & Data: The Core of Everything We Do
Many people ask: "You were working on AI in healthcare--why jump into Insurtech?"
The truth is, no matter what front-end business we build--health tech, insurance tech, fintech--the foundation will always be AI and data.
Why?
We already tried AI in healthcare (Spinacare) but struggled to get medical data due to regulations.
Insurance, however, is a different story.
So, while we were entering Insurtech, our core vision remained the same--using AI to make things better.
Understanding the Competition
Before jumping in, we analyzed the biggest players in Insurtech:
These companies were already doing great work. So, the question was: Where do we fit in?
We didn't want to just compete--we wanted to solve an unsolved problem.
The First Idea - A Reward-Based Insurance App
We started with a simple yet powerful concept: What if we could make insurance cheaper for people who share health data?
For example: If your insurance premium is INR 1,000 per month, but you provide verified health data, we could reduce it to INR 800, giving you an INR 200 discount.
The logic was simple: More data = better AI predictions = lower insurance risks = lower premiums.
We thought: This is it! This is how we make insurance better!
But then came the IRDAI regulations.
The Regulatory Nightmare - Capital Requirements in Insurance
To become an insurance provider or aggregator in India, we needed to comply with IRDAI (Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India) rules.
When we researched, we got a reality check:
This was a huge barrier for a startup like us.
Unlike a tech startup that can be bootstrapped, the insurance industry needed heavy capital investment upfront.
That's when we asked ourselves: "Can we find another way to enter this market without raising millions of rupees first?"
The Wallet Idea - Another Capital Barrier
To solve the affordability problem, we thought of launching a digital wallet for health savings.
But here's the problem:
At this point, we were constantly running into regulatory roadblocks.
So, we started thinking: What if we didn't build our own wallet? What if we partnered with a bank instead?
That's when we discovered neobanking.
The Pivot to Neobanking - A Smarter Solution
Instead of creating our own wallet, we thought: Why not partner with banks to create digital savings accounts for healthcare?
It was a great idea--except for one big problem: Most people don't like saving money.
We discussed this with our mentor, Prakash Balasubramanian, who immediately questioned us: "Who is actually going to save money for health? People live on credit--they don't plan ahead."
And he was right.
This was another eye-opening moment. We needed a niche. We needed something urgent.
That's when everything changed.
The Friday Night Epiphany - Why Cancer Care?
On a Friday evening, Nishaalu was riding his bike, thinking about the challenges we were facing.
We were about to have an online meeting with an industry expert--with 15 years of experience.
While thinking about our struggles, it hit him:
Cancer patients need insurance. They need financial support.
This was our eye-opener moment.
Instead of focusing on general insurance, we should focus on cancer insurance and financing.
The Final Decision - Building for Cancer Patients
One of the key people we met was Neerjaa, a cancer counsellor and a breast cancer conqueror.
"Cancer patients don't just need insurance--they need financial security, emotional support, and better treatment options."
At that moment, everything made sense.