India’s $740B Opportunity: Insights from Blume Ventures’ Marmik Mankodi

Keren Etkin: Hello, and welcome to another episode of The AgeTech Podcast. My guest today is Marmik Mankodi from Blume Ventures, which recently published. This fantastic report, the elder care blueprint, which is one of the more in-depth analysis I’ve ever read about the opportunities available for AgeTech entrepreneurs out there, specifically in the Indian market, which is one of the most exciting opportunities right now.

We also have a video about that, which I will either put right here or right here. But right now, it’s time to start the podcast.

Marmik welcome to the show.

Marmik Mankodi: Hey.

Hi, Karen. Thanks for having me

Keren Etkin: so

I would love to start

by just you introducing yourself and the fund so we can get a better sense of the backstory of both.

Marmik Mankodi: Yeah, sure. Hi, I’m Marmik. I joined the investment team at Blume around nine to 10 months ago at the time of recording. But yeah, prior to joining Blume, used to work in

a startups in

India and Southeast Asia, where I used to look at revenue, which is user acquisition, retention, product

led growth.

That’s been my background past, prior to joining Blume.

And at Blume, I look at our investments in consumer apps, education. Consumer apps include and consumer services,

including eldercare

Keren Etkin: I feel like there

is a strong overlap,

between

many of the startups in our ecosystem

because

many of them start as,

hopefully, startups hoping to become direct to consumer startups. But obviously,

that is

A

huge challenge for startups

and it also

requires

a lot of funding.

So maybe can you give

us some examples of startups that you’ve invested in the past

In the elder care space

that have done really well in this.

Marmik Mankodi: We’ve only invested in one startup in the eldercare space which was Khyaal That’s about it. And it’s done significantly well

Keren Etkin: can you walk us through the process of investing in Khyaal or what made you, first of all, get excited about this startup and this opportunity

and what made you eventually invest in

them?

Marmik Mankodi: for sure.

So full disclosure we invested in Khyaal much before I had joined Blume. But, what, but I went through the notes what excited us was the fact that they were building a community, right? Like right now there are more than a million users who engage with the app at some point. And the engagement leads to them transacting via travel, via memberships, via marketplace that has been curated for the elderly, right?

So it’s like a digital community, like a digital hangout spot, right? What Clubhouse was two

years ago,

but for the

elders. so

that’s what really

got us excited

Keren Etkin: and.

For the

fund in general,

Is the

fund able to invest internationally or are you only investing in Indian based startups?

Marmik Mankodi: Yeah. so as a fun I was supposed to answer that earlier, but we tend to make two to 3 million investments up to 5 million for companies that are based out of India. So that’s a constraint that we have, or let’s say an Indian founder who’s

building for the

globe

Keren Etkin: Perfect. So in, in this report that you published this year, the Eldercare Blueprint,

which by the way, I encourage

everyone to check out BlumeVC’s

website, search for the Eldercare

Blueprint and

really go through it. It’s one of the most

thorough

documents and reports that I’ve ever seen any VC put out about this space.

You

Mentioned

that there is

an opportunity

because lots of younger Indians are moving abroad

and they have to become remote

caregivers. Can

you tell me

more about how you view this opportunity?

Marmik Mankodi: Yeah, sure. So it’s not just Indians view of traveling abroad. They also travel within the country. So let’s say I grew up in a smallish town, now large called Ahmedabad. But I’m currently based out of Bangalore, right? So a lot of people, they move away from hometowns and to metros in India. Apart from, let’s say, a certain diaspora that goes abroad, right?

I think our research indicates that around 1. 2

million

Indians immigrate annually to study for masters. And around two and a half million Indians immigrate,

annum, right? Just like that, Right. Which includes the 1. 2 that I mentioned earlier. This leads to in our head, at least 8 million households that require remote assistance, if at all.

Because there’s a

sense of

guilt when you move abroad, because Being Indian, there’s this cultural value of caring for and looking after your parents. Right. So there’s a guilt associated. To not being there for them which I think is very Indian in nature, right? Which is why we think that there’s a

large opportunity

and a revenue pool

this space.

Keren Etkin: It sounds, it makes a lot of sense, for sure.

And

you also mentioned that there is

a significant increase, or there

was a significant increase in tech adoption

for

urban elders

in India, especially since COVID, can you share a little bit about how you were

able to gauge the market?

Cause you also have

an

estimate of, In your report that the entire market is worth around seven hundred and forty billion dollars.

And I feel like

gauging the market,

Is something that many

startups struggle to do.

you share a little bit about your methodologies

maybe of how you did it?

Marmik Mankodi: So I want to break this into various segments, slices and dices. How we went about it was, A, looking at number of Indians that live abroad.

be looking at, let’s say, a estimate of number of Indians that don’t live with home. With respect to digital penetration, it’s very straightforward. Everyone uses WhatsApp and WhatsApp

only works on smartphone,

right? So it’s about making something that’s as intuitive for an elder as WhatsApp can be, which is a primary mode of messaging across India.

So the way we went about it is we looked at where the revenue pools lie and the estimate number of paying customers, right? Which could be families, All individuals, right? Let’s say if I had to take about elder travel, then the key decision maker in our head is an elderly couple who has made enough money, What we call WOOPWHIs, well Off older people with, without any health issues. So they take their own decisions for travel with respect to how they wanna indulge into things. And the second part is the caregiving

Where

where the kid or the child is the primary

So we

Went through that exercise of going through a

Where

parents take a decision in? Where do children take a decision?

What is the addressable market for that, which can

be taken by. Let’s say income demographics, right? And then

extrapolating into the average ticket size into that sector. and then,

coming across or

coming

Keren Etkin: so

I

love that, that, you came up with the

WOOPWHIs, I wasn’t sure how to pronounce it in the until you just said it.

The WOOPWHIs as

The sweet spot for,

Startups

so well

off older people without health

issues. And I think that is a

very, important point

that you made in your elder care

blueprint that.

Despite

the fact that the challenges of aging are universal and startups,

There’s so much for startups can do for consumer

startups. They are

better if

they focused on, on consumers that are

particularly well, off. Can you

share a little bit about how can a fund with a consumer focus,

how

can a fund help startups be strategic I

guess accelerate their path to product

market feed because we

know consumer

customer

acquisition is expensive

in

any space and perhaps even more so in this space.

Marmik Mankodi: So,

look my colleague in here, my colleague Sajid, he breaks down product

market fit into two parts. One is product to problem fit and second is motion to market fit. Product to problem fit is does your product actually solve the problem that it’s supposed to solve?

Right? And motion to market fit is now, do you have a GTM motion that makes your product

propagate

in a cheaper manner, right? In a cost efficient way. So the way a fund can really help a

startup is just figuring out the

the

Like how do you get users at the lowest CAC? Is It by a core insight or is it by

differentiating the product or

Is there any juice left in the marketing funnels or with respect to your PPC campaigns, so on so forth.

And with respect to tracking metrics that sort of know, that sort of give an indication that your product’s well loved, right? Like most of the metrics are very common,

like your net promoter score, right? Which is how likely are

you

to refer your startup to a friend. And the higher net promoter score means that your service is good. But the discovery into what brings in a higher NPS VCs can help because they objectively look at the business probably once

a week or once a month or once a quarter,

depending on the cadence that has been set. It helps the founders also zoom out and be more objective about stuff That’s

how I think of it

Keren Etkin: It makes a lot of sense. Do you

see a difference in consumer startups

that are targeting the general

population or younger generations versus consumer startups who are targeting the older population? Is there a difference,

let’s say, in the marketing channels that they might use or even

in the customer acquisition

costs?

Marmik Mankodi: At the, at

at this point of time, no, not really. The marketing channels are still very eerily similar especially for digital platforms. But when you speak about care, a facility a senior care facility we do see that startups or companies, institutions tend to market to the children.

Which who

might or might not be living in India, right? So there’s a lot of word of mouth and organic pull for those places which are more physical in nature where let’s say a parent is living in a

facility

as opposed to a digital space where the marketing channels are very similar

to any

Keren Etkin: It makes a lot of sense.

So what

do you see as the opportunities in this

market? So if I’m an entrepreneur and I want to build a startup in the

AgeTech space,

what sort of

problems would you suggest that I look into?

I would

Marmik Mankodi: suggest

looking at it from a full stack manner, right? Let’s say if you’re targeting the well off people, then you can rely on the community and the network effects of the community to kick in and let’s say add a level of tourism or concierge

to it,

But otherwise it makes sense to go full stack and give a physical center where elders can come get their vitals checked, so on and so forth, or a non intrusive device, for example, that stays at home. Because what our research suggests is that once an elder Elderly, let’s say once an elder in the family has a fall, that’s when their health significantly deteriorates.

So is there a non intrusive way to track whether there’s a fall, right? Like you can always prevent falls by having fixtures and railings and stuff, But let’s say

if you could monitor it in a non intrusive manner via sensors in a room, then you know, the game sort

of changes

So

these three areas

Keren Etkin: And one thing that I also saw that you

mentioned in the report is that you

have identified areas in

which the willingness to spend is higher, for example nutrition

and senior homes

and insurance. Can you share a little bit, a bit about, that and what sorts of specific problems maybe you’ve identified in these markets that startups can go after?

Marmik Mankodi: Look, we are also exploring with respect to nutrition, right? Because it’s so personal. Like I might have a particular vitamin deficiency, which you wouldn’t, know. my parents might have a particular vitamin deficiency or any other deficiency that your parents might not. So it’s good to serve all the use cases that

exist with

respect to insurance how do I put it? It’s a product that has existed For more than like at least 50 to 60 years in india, right? So there’s not a lot of innovation that you could do, where there could be a digital edges with respect to underwriting this. Let’s say if you could monitor health data, then you can help insurers underwrite risk better and offer better premiums for elderly let’s say if I have an Apple watch, which

monitors my heart rate, hypothetically,

I could tell my insurer that, Hey,

look, take access to my Apple health. Obviously there has to be an opt in for privacy reasons, but you could use that to

underwrite risk. My underwrite

your risk better offer me lower premiums,

right? So on so forth,

Like it happens with medical health checkups, whether it be the check for your

lungs the health

of your lungs, your heart, so on so forth.

And then determine what

your insurance annual insurance premium should be like. Now, could you use it on a continuity basis? We are yet to find

out, but that could be an interesting

space

Keren Etkin: For

sure.

And

do you see

any differences between, let’s say, the Indian market and other markets?

Like what? Are there

any specific opportunities

or characteristics that are

unique and it can only be found in India?

Marmik Mankodi: The most unique characteristic that you’d find in India is the guilt of not being around your parents, especially if you’re well off and living away from them. I don’t think it exists in other countries as much like I’ve had friends from other countries and I would ask them Hey, would you care for your, would you take care of your parents physically and emotionally?

Everyone says, yeah, emotionally for sure. Physically, not so much, but in India, by default, you’re expected to take care of your parents by being around them too, which is what makes it a little more unique. In fact, putting your parents in a facility for senior citizens, there’s still some amount of social stigma associated with putting your parents in a

facility

Keren Etkin: it

makes a lot of sense. Thank you so much for sharing that insight, Marmek.

I wonder if

the, this guilt,

Actually

drives

the

children of these older adults

be more

proactive in searching for solutions for them and maybe buying more solutions for them.

Marmik Mankodi: Correct. Correct. It is true. It is true.

Right? Like I think in Western markets or other markets, the elderly people make their own decisions. Even over here, there’s a certain segment of Indians where the elderly take their own decisions, but it’s mostly kids Maybe 10 years

later, things will change

Keren Etkin: got it.

So

at this point

I would like to take a crystal ball

and

ask you to.

Try

to predict the future.

Where do you see this market in

five or 10 or 15

years? What

do you see,

as the future? new companies that are emerging. Do

you see

any companies currently in the market that you

think will dominate the market in the future?

Marmik Mankodi: If I had to put a crystal ball, I wouldn’t name a company per se because that would be unfair to anyone else who’s building right now. But if I had to think that I think concierges can take off really well, the reason I feel concierges can take off really well is because Indians, the affluent Indians always have a house help. Most of them have a, even the non affluent ones might have a part time house help, right? So everyone’s used to someone taking care of your day to day life, right? So what

if there’s just like a virtual concierge who’s available on demand, like how So a lot of US companies or companies around the world employ

remote

right? So

what does a good remote assistant for elderly look like someone who takes care of their medicines asks them, Hey, have you taken this medicine or not? Someone who helps track vitals, sends sends nudges, like, Hey, did you charge your watch? Which also is a monitoring device for you. So on so forth and gets random stuff done, like going to the bank, you Going to an insurer, getting their wills vetted, so on, so forth.

Right? So that is one place where I think something would come up. It is very digital as well as physical, right? Because digitally

you could have a CRM which maintains or which can be used for ticketing. Whereas an individual

does the

right? And there’s a very high gap, which is also very India specific between how much a user would pay and how much it would actually

cost you,

Like the minimum wage in India is not that high, right? Which makes, which improves margins for companies.

Significantly.

Keren Etkin: Yeah,

It makes a lot of sense because these

types of Services

in Western markets can be

very expensive. so it makes

a lot of sense that this type of service would actually take off in a market like India, where like you said, that the minimum wage is not that high

and people who are. WOOPWHIs can certainly

Afford the service

so Marmik, is there anything else you would like to

add and, share with our audience, which is a lot of startups and a lot of maybe inspiring entrepreneurs who are seeking for their next adventure.

Marmik Mankodi: One thing,

that I would like. to leave listeners with is the framework to narrow down the ICP,

where we put people into a two by two matrix, right, standard consultant stuff, where

we segregated users with

respect to their health, which is

good and poor, and financial security, right, with respect to people being financially

insecure.

or financially secure, right?

So we feel

that.

Users who are financially secure and have poor health would obviously have,

would treat this, treat a full stack service with a higher

right? Whereas

let’s say someone who’s financially secure and has good health might take a community or travel importance, right?

And let’s say someone who’s financially insecure

but good health is,

It’s Probably an area or a demographic where a lot of revenue pool

doesn’t exist because

there’s a lower paying capacity. Financially insecure and poor health and financially insecure good health as a silver strivers to us, right?

right? They’ll get by

Keren Etkin: Thank you so much for sharing your views with us and insights and joining me on the show, Marmik. It was an absolute pleasure meeting you and having this discussion with you. I will

put a

link to the Eldercare Blueprint in the show notes. And thank you so much for joining me Marmik

Marmik Mankodi: Yeah.

Thanks for having me Keren

Keren Etkin: Thank you for watching this episode of The AgeTech podcast. If you enjoyed it, make sure they hit the like subscribe and get notification buttons so you can get a notification. Whenever we publish a new episode. Until next time, stay humble. Stay curious.