The Janitri Journey
In India, for every 1 lakh live births, 97 mothers die after pregnancy/delivery/post- pregnancy. For every 1000 live births, 26 babies die during delivery/post-delivery. Meet the founder solving this.
Once in a while, you come across a company builder who is creating a category of their own.
A pattern I have observed across category creators is that they have a rare combination of unbridled imagination and maniacal tunnel vision. From a very early age, it was clear to Arun Agarwal that he wanted to get into a business that could create a real impact on maximum lives.
As he narrated his story, I realized that I was sitting across someone who is creating a segment of his own. Out of thin air.
After completing his Masters in 2013, Arun spent time conducting on-ground research. He says, “I started spending time with healthcare professionals from different departments. I was looking for specific problems to solve. While doing the research, I remembered a termination of childbirth in my family. I didn’t know if a technological intervention was possible, but the dots began to connect.”
This was enough impetus for Arun to take the plunge. “I got this feeling that mother and child healthcare is what I want to focus on. It is a global problem so I can build a company. I can employ technology to solve real problems and have an impact. It checked all the boxes for me personally. I left my job and started Janitri.”
Learning basics of business from his grandfather
Arun's story begins in the dusty town of Alwar in rural Rajasthan.
“My grandfather ran a wood trading business called 'Taal'. He had started taking me to the Taal as soon as I was born,” Arun begins.
He continues, “We operated the business from a warehouse attached to our home. Each morning, suppliers would bring wood from nearby villages and forests. We managed inventory in quintals (100 kg units) for wholesale, but our end consumers were typically households purchasing small quantities - between 1 to 10 kg - for their cooking stoves. I learned how value creation works.”
Finding Purpose in Unaddressed Problems
It is in his college days at VIT University where he first got exposed to the power of technology to solve real-world problems.
As part of a robotics club, he and his batchmates started participating in and winning various competitions."We were competing and learning by building solutions for problem statements in domains like agriculture, micro-mouse, and image processing. The gamified environment with instant feedback really accelerated our engineering skills. By the end of the first year, we were miles ahead of our peers in coding, electronics, and product development," Arun says.
Encouraged by their success, Arun and two friends started offering robotics workshops to students and colleges in the vicinity. The workshops took off, and they delivered over 100 of them, training close to 2000 students over their college years. The venture ended up making Rs 60 lakhs, a sizeable sum for college students in 2011.
But something was missing. Despite the financial success, Arun wasn't feeling the impact he wanted to create. The realization dawned that the venture was essentially a hobby business - it wasn't fundamentally transforming lives or addressing a burning global need. That's when Arun decided to dig deeper.
Arun says, "Throughout my childhood in Rajasthan, I had seen many healthcare issues firsthand, especially related to pregnancy and childbirth. I started connecting the dots, realizing that technology could be the key to addressing these challenges on a large scale. That's when I committed to focus on healthcare technology, come what may."
Arun points out, “Due to my love for building hardware technology for solving problems, I thought it had to be a hardware technology business. After my Masters, I had to survive financially so I took a job as a Patent Analyst in the healthcare department of a research company. In the weekends and during my free time, I would go and meet doctors and spend time in hospitals. I realized that the potential to create impact using technology in the healthcare market is immense in a country like India.”
He went through a disciplined process of identifying and shortlisting problems to solve - spending time on the field, shadowing doctors, and observing procedures up close.
The research crystallized into a clear problem statement: A large percentage of maternal and child mortality and complications were arising due to inadequate vital signs monitoring during labor. Existing solutions were expensive, hard to use, and not accessible to most birthing centers. There was a dire need for an affordable, simple, medical-grade monitor that could be deployed widely.
Breakthrough
Arun moved to Bengaluru in October 2015 and spent the next six months conducting deeper, more targeted research before formally incorporating the company in March 2016.
The initial phase of product development was supported by the grants received from BIRAC (Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council), the Gates Foundation, Grant Challenges Canada, and the Government of Karnataka, accumulating approximately ₹4 crores over 2.5 years.
This capital enabled Arun to progress from concept to clinical research, following a rigorous development pathway.
After nearly three years of intense development and iterations, the first version of Keyar, an intrapartum monitoring device, was born.
Arun reflects on the process: "Building a medical device from scratch was complex, to say the least. There were countless aspects to figure out - product design, clinical validation, regulatory compliance, supply chain and so on. But the potential impact kept us going. We knew that if we could get this right, we could help save the lives of millions of mothers and babies.By 2019, we had achieved two significant milestones: a working MVP (Minimum Viable Product) and preliminary clinical research data."
This progress attracted the attention of Mark Wang from Pure Land Venture, a Singapore-based medtech-focused investment firm. His initial commitment of $350K, followed by an additional $150K, provided the resources needed to move toward commercialization.
Go-to-Market
With the core product in hand, the Janitri team set out to commercialize the device in 2021.
But they quickly realized that product development was only half the battle. Building the right team, crafting the right go-to-market approach, and getting rapid adoption was equally critical.
Arun explains, “Our team-building strategy was incremental and strategic. We began by recruiting engineering interns, leveraging their fresh perspectives and technical skills. As the project evolved, we recognized the need for specialized expertise in clinical research - an entirely new domain for me. This led to a significant learning curve in understanding the clinical research ecosystem. We established crucial partnerships with local medical colleges for clinical trials, building the foundation for our evidence-based approach.”
Initially, the team positioned Keyar as a feature-rich, comprehensive platform with a premium pricing of Rs. 2 lakhs plus. The market, however, didn't bite. Doctors appreciated the core features but felt that many add-on functionalities were overkill. Hospitals expected a significant price advantage over competing solutions to try out a new device.
Arun and team went back to the drawing board and re-assessed their approach. "We realized we needed to introduce different SKUs at various price points to cater to the needs of different customer segments. So we stripped Keyar to its essential 4-5 core features and launched it as KeyarLite at a 40% lower price point. That led to an almost immediate uptick in adoption."
Over time, as the team spent more time with doctors and hospitals, they further understood the need for consumable pricing, faster delivery, and seamless service. In response, Janitri launched Keyar-as-a-Service, an end-to-end subscription offering covering the device, consumables, and after-sales service for one fixed annual fee. The company also worked on optimizing its manufacturing and distribution to enable 24-48 hour dispatch nationally. By the end of 2021, Janitri was clocking an ARR of ₹1Cr on the back of these initiatives.
Revenue Growth and Business Model
For the FY 24-25, the company is on track to hit ₹9 crores top line, which is a 3X jump over FY 23-24 when the company did ₹4.01 crores in revenue. They are rapidly expanding their distribution footprint and channel partnerships. They're also investing in sales and support teams to drive adoption of the product.
To ease the pressure on working capital, Janitri is exploring new business models that are better aligned with their cash flow needs.
Arun shares, "One of the initiatives we're exploring is an annual maintenance contract (AMC) bundled with the device cost. So instead of a one-time purchase, customers can pay a recurring amount that covers the device lease, consumables, and after-sales support for a year."
This model would make the solution more affordable for smaller clinics and nursing homes. They can better manage their costs with predictable, bite-sized payments. More importantly, it improves the visibility and stability of revenues for Janitri.
The team is also contemplating a hybrid model in which customers can choose between an upfront purchase and a lease-cum-AMC model. This would give them the flexibility to choose the plan that best suits their financial situation.
"Ultimately, the goal is to build a business model that aligns customer incentives with our financial goals and makes quality care more accessible. We will keep iterating until we find that sweet spot," affirms Arun.
Streamlining Supply Chain and Inventory Management:
To ensure they can fulfill orders quickly, Janitri maintains an inventory of raw components that covers their expected sales for the coming month. For components with longer lead times, they place orders well in advance to always have adequate stock.
"The lead times for these components can vary significantly, from as short as 3 days to as long as 3 weeks. Once we have all the components in-house, the actual assembly and testing of a Keyar device (for example) takes just about an hour. Our team is trained to quickly put together and dispatch devices as soon as we get confirmed orders," says Arun.
While Janitri does keep a small inventory of finished goods to handle urgent requests, they predominantly follow a quasi-make-to-order model, keeping component stock and assembling on demand. This helps optimize inventory holding costs.
Managing Cash Flows Across The Value Chain
One of the biggest challenges for any hardware startup is managing cash flows across the value chain. Raw material suppliers often demand upfront payment, while customers may take weeks or even months to pay in full.
Arun explains, "Currently, around 60% of our product cost is the raw materials we procure from vendors. While we collect a 50% advance from customers on order confirmation, our vendor payment terms are often not as favorable."
With several of their component suppliers, Janitri has to pay a 50% advance and the balance within 30 days of delivery. In the case of some critical parts, it's even a 100% advance. This creates a tricky situation where cash outflows precede inflows.
"In effect, until we get the final payment from the customer, which usually takes 3-4 weeks after device installation, our working capital is blocked," says Arun.
That's where having adequate capital on the balance sheet becomes really important. A lot of founders think of raised funds as money for R&D or marketing. But a significant portion also goes into financing inventory and receivables.
The Road Ahead: Relentless Focus on Impact
Today, Janitri's devices monitor the vital signs of 5000+ pregnant women each month across 600+ hospitals. These are not just numbers to Arun but lives being potentially saved.
Arun shares, "Each time I hear a story of how our device helped detect a complication early and enabled timely intervention, it gives me goosebumps. This is why we do what we do. The fact that we can quantify our impact, and see it grow with every passing month, is what keeps us going."
But Arun is far from done. In his view, Janitri is still barely scratching the surface. He reckons over 2 lakh hospitals in India could benefit from the company's solutions, representing a ₹2000 Crore market opportunity for the core product alone. And that's not counting the add-on software and services the company is developing to further optimize maternal care workflows and outcomes.
To realize this potential, Janitri is now focused on expanding its sales and support network pan-India, while continuing to enhance its product suite. The company aims to grow to ₹3 Cr monthly revenue in the next 12 months and is raising a Series A round to fuel this scale-up.
Exciting new offerings in the pipeline include a wearable vital signs patch for remote monitoring in the third trimester and a neonatal monitoring solution for high-risk newborns. The company has already initiated clinical studies and pilots for these products.
Having established a clear product-market fit and commercial validation with Keyar, Janitri is now well-poised to build a holistic maternal and child health platform for low-resource settings, starting with India and then expanding to other emerging markets.
Conclusion
Arun signs off on the learnings from his journey so far by saying, "I think it all boils down to three things - patience, persistence and partnership. Transforming something as complex as maternal healthcare doesn't happen overnight. You need to be in it for the long haul.
There will be plenty of challenges and roadblocks along the way, and you can't get disheartened by them. You need to keep chipping away, experimenting and iterating till you find the right answers.
And most importantly, you can't do it alone. We have been fortunate to find the right partners - from our clinical collaborators to our investors - who believe in our mission as much as we do. Their support has been invaluable.
If we can hold on to these values as we scale, I am confident we can together build a future where no mother or child loses their life due to a preventable cause. And that's a future worth fighting for."
As the saying goes, it takes a village to raise a child, and if Arun and the team have their way, Janitri will be the platform that enables that village.
Janitri, currently running at a revenue for FY 24-25 of ₹ 9 crores (on track), is raising its Pre-Series A round to raise ₹12 crores at a valuation of Rs 96 crores pre-money. 85% of these funds have already been raised. If you are an investor who wants to participate, write to us at banjan@tal64.com. If someone referred you to this article, please mention them as well when reaching out!