Primarily based in Bangladesh, Maya is devoted to creating it simpler for girls to get healthcare, particularly for delicate points like reproductive and psychological well being. The startup introduced as we speak it has raised $2.2 million in seed funding. The round, which Maya mentioned is the biggest raised by a Bangladeshi well being tech firm to this point, was led by early-stage fund Anchorless Bangladesh and The Osiris Group, a non-public fairness agency focused on influence investing in Asian markets.
The funding can be used to introduce new merchandise to Maya’s telehealth platform and increase into extra international locations. Maya just lately launched in Sri Lanka and plans to increase into India, Pakistan, Center Japanese markets and Indonesia.
Maya makes use of pure language processing and machine studying expertise for its digital assistant, which solutions fundamental health-related questions and decides if customers have to be routed to human consultants. It has about 10 million distinctive customers and presently counts greater than 300 licensed healthcare suppliers on its platform.
Founder and chief govt officer Ivy Huq Russell, who grew up in Chittagong and Dhaka earlier than shifting to the UK for college, began Maya as a weblog with healthcare data in 2011. On the time, Russell labored in finance. She had simply given start to her first youngster and her mom had just lately been recognized with breast most cancers. Russell informed TechCrunch she realized what number of challenges there have been to searching for medical care in Bangladesh, together with monetary limitations, a scarcity of suppliers and lengthy journey occasions to clinics.
She started Maya with the aim of offering reliable well being data, however rapidly realized that the positioning’s guests wanted extra help. Many despatched messages by way of WhatsApp, e-mail or the positioning’s chat field, together with survivors of sexual abuse, rape and home violence. After receiving a grant from BRAC, a Bangladeshi non-governmental group, Maya’s group started creating an app to attach customers with medical data and consultants.
Maya’s homescreen
“We had been very focused on two issues,” Russell mentioned. “One is how can we constructed belief in our group, of their language, as a result of it’s essential that they impart within the language that they’re snug utilizing. On the similar time, we realized as quickly as we began getting tons of and tons of of questions, that we’re not going to have the ability to scale up if we simply have 50 consultants on computer systems typing.”
To help Bengali and regional dialects, Maya spent greater than two years focused on creating its pure language processing expertise. It collaborated with knowledge scientists and linguists and took half in Google Launchpad’s accelerator program, working on tokenization and coaching its machine studying algorithms. Now Maya is ready to present automated solutions in Bengali to fundamental questions in 50 matters with about 95% accuracy, Russell mentioned. Out of the 4 million queries the platform has dealt with to this point, about half had been answered by its AI tech.
Many should do with sexual or reproductive well being and the platform has additionally seen a rise in questions on psychological well being. These are matters customers are sometimes hesitant searching for in-person consultations for.
“Rising up in Bangladesh, we obtained minimal sexual schooling. There’s no curriculum at college. Not too long ago within the final one or two years, we’ve additionally began to see a lot of psychological well being questions, as a result of I believe we’ve made a good drive towards speaking about psychological well being,” mentioned Russell. She added, “it’s fairly pure that no matter they couldn’t go and ask a query about very brazenly in conventional healthcare methods, they arrive and ask us.”
Extra consultations are coming from males, too, who now make up about 30% of Maya’s customers. Many ask questions on contraception and household planning, or how you can help their companions’ medical points. To guard customers’ privateness, consultations are end-to-end encrypted, and consultants solely see a randomly-generated ID as an alternative of private data.
With a view to perceive if somebody must be routed to a human professional, Maya’s algorithms considers the size, complexity and urgency of queries, primarily based on their tone. For instance, if somebody sorts “please, please, please assist me,” they routinely get directed to a individual. Nearly all of questions on psychological well being are additionally despatched to an professional.
Russell mentioned Maya’s strategy is to take a holistic strategy to bodily well being and psychological wellness, as an alternative of treating them as separate points.
“Individuals don’t simply ask about bodily well being points. Additionally they ask issues like, ‘I put on a hijab and I need to go for a run, however I really feel actually awkward,’” mentioned Russell. “It seems like a very regular query, nevertheless it’s really fairly a loaded query, as a result of it’s affecting their psychological well being on a day-to-day foundation.”
One of many firm’s targets is to make the app really feel accessible, so folks really feel extra snug searching for help. “We’ve actually have had sweets delivered to our workplace when a consumer has a child,” Russell mentioned. “These are the private touches that I believe Maya has delivered by way of coping with each bodily in addition to psychological well being circumstances mixed collectively.”
The corporate is presently working with totally different monetization fashions. One is business-to-business gross sales, positioning Maya as a software-as-a-service platform that employers can provide to employees as a profit. Garment manufacturing is one among Bangladesh’s largest export sectors, and plenty of employees are younger ladies, becoming Maya’s typical consumer profile. The startup has labored with Marks and Spencer, Primark and the Bangladesh Clothes Producer and Exporters Affiliation (BGMEA).
One other B2B route is partnering with insurance coverage suppliers who provide Maya as a profit. On the direct-to-consumer facet, Maya just lately launched premium providers, together with in-app video consultations and prescription supply. Demand for consultations elevated sharply in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, and it now handles about 300,000 video visits a month. Russell expects many customers to proceed utilizing telehealth providers even after the pandemic subsides.
“They’ve actually seen the benefit of simply having a physician proper in entrance of you,” she mentioned. “For folks with persistent circumstances, it’s simpler as a result of they don’t should go someplace each week, and the actual fact they’ve monitoring and their historical past gathered is useful for normal customers, too.”