Norwest backs India hospital, HealthQuad marks 3x exit
Norwest Venture Partners has invested INR 4.5bn (USD 54m) in Indian hospital operator Regency Healthcare, facilitating an exit for HealthQuad, which generated a 3x return.
HealthQuad, a VC affiliate of healthcare private equity firm Quadria Capital, invested just over INR 1bn in Regency since 2017 as part of a consortium alongside the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and Belgian impact investor Kois Holdings.
The deal marks HealthQuad’s third exit from its debut fund, which closed on INR 750m in 2017. The standout deal from that vintage is B2B medical supplies platform MedikaBazaar, which has raised almost USD 200m across five rounds, all featuring Kois. Fund II closed on USD 162m last year.
Regency is a multi-specialty hospital chain established in 1995 with a view to filling a demand gap in northern state of Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous. The company claims to have the only standalone private comprehensive cancer care facility in the state. Other competencies include cardiac sciences, renal sciences, neuroscience, gastroenterology, paediatrics, and orthopaedics.
Local media indicated in September that Norwest was seeking a 40% stake. HealthQuad confirmed the latest investment includes a mix of primary and secondary shares. The plan is to increase bed capacity from 700 currently to 2,300 by 2027. This will include the opening of four new hospitals, mostly in second-tier cities in Uttar Pradesh.
“Uttar Pradesh comprises of 17% of India’s population yet significantly lacks affordable and good quality private healthcare,” Charles-Antoine Janssen, a managing partner at HealthQuad, said in a statement. “Over the years, Regency has emerged as a dominant healthcare brand in UP. It has built a quality healthcare infrastructure and has made it accessible at affordable prices in deeply under-served markets.”
Private equity investment in Indian healthcare services (including medical devices but excluding pharma) cracked USD 1bn for the first time in 2020 and hasn’t looked back – the pandemic having amplified longstanding themes around economic uplift, policy reform, and regional market penetration. Investment crossed USD 1.7bn in both 2021 and 2022 and it passed USD 3.1bn in the first seven months of 2023.
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