Profile: Alkemi Growth Capital’s Alka Goel

Indian TV talk show Kuch Batein Kuch Gaane, literally translated as “Some Conversations Some Songs,” features one-on-one interviews with celebrities in fashion, media and art, who discuss their craft and personal motivations before playing a relevant song. Its interest as a footnote in the private equity world is the fact that rather than attracting investment, it helped foster industry talent.

Alka Goel, founding partner of healthcare-focused Alkemi Growth Capital, sees her early career of odd jobs as a formative experience in asking the right questions, understanding people, and honing skills related to adapting to new situations.

While speaking with friends in Delhi in 1997, a staffer at Venture Direct Television overheard Goel’s voice and liked the pitch. The chance encounter quickly translated into voiceover work and eventually a gig as host of Kuch Batein Kuch Gaane.

“Saying ‘yes’ to opportunities was an important theme for me. I didn’t know where it was leading. The idea was, ‘Okay, I’ll be a talk show host and figure it out,’” said Goel. “The common theme was I’ll do whatever to support myself. It wasn’t very calculated, but it taught me a lot about taking chances.”

Goel’s resume started getting interesting when she graduated from Lady Shri Ram College For Women in 1997 with a degree in economics. That was the school’s most prestigious and demanding subject, not a passion. Goel was inclined toward creative pursuits, especially drama and dance, but was good academically and up for a challenge.

Working near the grounds of Apra Motels, one of Delhi’s largest resort operators, she was spontaneously invited to take a stab at being the company’s events and promotions manager. Again, unfamiliar with the specifics of the job, the answer was yes. Around the same time, another encounter with an entrepreneur led to a stint in journalism and, importantly, a chance to hone interviewing skills.

“Asking questions is something that has been in my DNA and I did very well,” Goel said. “Especially in VC, you have to have the ability to imagine and ask the right questions. You’re trying to imagine the future, and you have to be more optimistic than pessimistic, which again, is my personality. You have to ask why this will work as opposed to why it will not. Otherwise, there’s no way you can disrupt the status quo.”

McKinsey and beyond

All the while, Goel’s parents were pressuring for more direction in terms of her career. For reasons mostly related to keeping them satisfied, she signed up for the Common Admission Test (CAT) for graduate management programs. She studied during the day and took up a job selling time-share properties by night. “In 1990s India, no women took time off to do things like this,” she said.

Good CAT scores led to enrolment at the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, where Goel was the first woman to take part in an exchange program. Her senior class was populated with a heretofore unfamiliar personality type, business and engineering oriented. They had predominantly set their sights on McKinsey & Company. Goel was curious and applied as well.

“McKinsey channelled my creativity in a business setting,” she said. “You have to look at problems differently, look at data differently, and most importantly, you have to influence your clients to actually implement your recommendations.”

Goel was transferred to McKinsey’s New York-based operations in 2004 and stayed with the company for another 13 years. She took full advantage of its global platform, working across North and South America, Europe, and Asia, including frequent assignments in India. Healthcare became her specialisation.

During this time, Goel began making investments in her own capacity. The first of these came in 2009 in the form of HeyKiki, a New York-based platform for networking instructors and students of various sports. Personal investment decisions were informed by due diligence and portfolio management experience with McKinsey’s private equity clients.

By 2017, it was clear Goel’s talents were being underutilised and a desire to make a more meaningful impact in her home country had come to the fore. She quit McKinsey in April that year, and by January 2018, she was back in Delhi figuring out the paperwork and assembling a team for Alkemi.

The first key hire in terms of investment talent was Mansi Aggarwal, a doctor by training with experience as a health-tech entrepreneur in Stanford University’s bio-design program, as well as an investment banker and venture capitalist with the likes of Yukon Capital and Sabre Ventures.

“Her experience was great, and it took a while to convince her,” Goel said. “I wanted to see that there was a marrying of the minds, so I spent a lot of time with her in different settings, running, going for brunches in outside social settings.”

Deployment mode

A debut fund reached a first close in 2018 and final close of USD 40m the following year, with LPs including endowments, healthcare providers, and large family offices in the US, as well as McKinsey contacts. The team has since been built out to seven, including four investment professionals.

The plan is to fill a Series A gap in the Indian health and wellness start-up ecosystem. The standout investment to date, however, is arguably Singapore’s Docquity, a social network used by more than 300,000 physicians, or about two-thirds of all doctors in Southeast Asia. The start-up has raised about USD 12.5m since 2015 from regional VCs and the likes of Japan’s Itochu Corporation.

The fund is currently about 80% deployed across seven other India-based companies. They include Healthcube, a portable point-of-care devices maker that promises test results for more than 30 parameters within minutes; PeeSafe, which makes various hygiene products such as toilet seat sanitizer spray; and Meddo, a clinic network and primary care booking platform.

Two deals are being finalized and set to close in the coming weeks. The total portfolio is expected to be 10-12 companies. Fund II is currently in the approvals process and scoped to write checks as large as USD 10m for 15-18 companies. At least two additional staff will be hired as part of the expansion.

Alongside InvAscent and Somerset Indus Capital Partners, Alkemi remains one of only a smattering of early-stage healthcare investors in India despite clear appetite for the strategy. Last month, HealthQuad, a VC outfit associated with private equity firm Quadria Capital, helped prove out the opportunity by raising about USD 150m for its second fund.

“Start-ups seeking funding have increased and so have potential funders. Finding your area of expertise has only increased in importance for funds. This puts Alkemi in a good space as our focus is clear,” Goel said.

“There continue to be gaps in funding for Series A-B deals, and we are filling this space well and will continue to do so. The size of the checks has certainly increased. We will take that into account while setting up our new fund and also reserve more for follow-up.”

Going digital

Alkemi will target a number of sub-trends in this momentum, largely driven by COVID-19. Digitalisation is one of the strongest currents; Goel observes that more than 90% of doctors in India still write paper prescriptions. “That’s going to disappear, and because the information will be electronically entered, you will have a lot of data for analytics,” she said.

Other areas of interest will continue to include point-of-care devices as lifestyles increasingly veer toward a more hands-on style of health awareness. As home oxygen monitoring gained traction during the pandemic, so will wearables and various tools for tracking cholesterol, haemoglobin, kidney function, or liver function.

“Healthcare will move to the home and the phone,” Goel said. “The phone is going to become your doctor, your pharmacy, and your diagnostics aid. And your home is going to become a place of delivery and care. The implications for home healthcare companies, devices, delivery of medicine, and remote diagnosis are huge.”

Timing is always the sticking point for closed-end funds seeking arbitrage in long-unfolding megatrends. But Goel is optimistic about improving exit prospects as certain fragmented niches consolidate, notably genetic testing, diagnostics, radiology, and other lab work-related fields.

She also sees potential for India’s recent traction in pre-profit IPOs coming to the health-tech sector. To date, the phenomenon has been dominated by consumer-facing and financial technology players. But several healthcare start-ups are in pole position for unicorn status this year and subsequent listings; among them HealthifyMe, MedGenome, Mfine, and Practo.

“The time required to accelerate value creation is reducing. In 2019, it took companies 8.7 years to become unicorns. In 2021, it was 6.7 years. It’s not inconceivable that IPOs for healthcare and wellness companies could happen in 5-6-7 years. That’s our hold period,” Goel said.

“In fact, the challenge I would give the industry is what can you imagine? Until a year back, no one could have imagined certain companies creating history on the Indian exchange. But things are possible now.”

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• Topics
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• GPs
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• Healthcare
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• Alkemi Growth Capital