Malaysian healthtech startup Naluri raises $5m to boost SEA expansion

Naluri Hidup (Naluri), a Malaysia-headquartered digital health service provider, announced that it has raised $5 million in a Series A funding round that will fuel its expansion in Southeast Asia.

The latest financing was backed by Singapore’s Integra Partners, Doupharma Biotech, Pathology Asia, M Venture Partners, Sumitomo Corporation Equity Asia, and a host of other investors.

The startup, co-founded in 2017 by Azran Osman-Rani, Hariyati Abdul Majid, Jeremy Ting, becomes the first company to benefit from the Dana Penjana National Program, a government program that matches a private capital contribution, dollar-for-dollar, to spur the local startup ecosystem.

Naluri offers human-led and AI-augmented digital health coaching that transforms the lives of people who are at risk of, or managing, chronic and mental health conditions

Premised on the fundamental understanding that physical and mental health are inextricably interconnected, the company provides structured multi-disciplinary support to those affected by diabetes, hypertension and heart disease, anxiety and depression, as well as advanced chronic conditions such as renal disease and cancer.

Naluri said the fresh funding will be used to expand its operations in Singapore and Indonesia and launch its services in Thailand and the Philippines.

It also seeks to deepen its tech and data science capabilities to enhance product and predictive algorithms, including natural language processing and depression detection, among others.

Also Read: Naluri, Malaysia- A Digital Therapeutics Platform

The startup said it will also continue its investment in clinical research to strengthen the evidence base in diabetes, renal, cardiovascular, cancer, and mental health therapeutic areas – including launching clinical research in Europe.

“With mental health at the fore in light of the pandemic, we are delighted that companies are now taking bolder steps to tackle physical and mental health holistically, and these investments are an affirmation of Naluri’s business model and growth prospects in this field,” said Naluri co-founder and CEO Azran Osman-Rani.

Other investors in the funding round include Palm Drive Capital from New York and INP Capital from Vancouver. The round was also supported by Hibiscus Fund, a venture capital fund managed by Malaysia’s RHL Ventures and Korea’s KB Investment that forms part of the Dana Penjana National Program.