Private equity major General Atlantic has made an investment in Cygnus Medicare which runs hospitals under the brand Ujala Cygnus in tier-2 and tier-3 regions in north India.
With the investment, Cygnus’s early investors, Eight Roads Ventures, Somerset Indus Capital, and Evolvence Capital, made a full exit, stated a press statement.
While the financial details are not disclosed, media reports indicate that General Atlantic has infused about $100 million in the company.
DealStreetAsia had written about the development in October 2023.
Somerset Indus first invested in Cygnus Medicare in 2013, while Eight Roads joined its cap table the following year. Evolvence came in as a backer in 2017.
Founded in 2011, Cygnus Medicare operates hospitals under the brand Ujala Cygnus, a name that it adopted after media group Amar Ujala acquired the bulk of the company’s stock through its diversified healthcare entity Ujala Health Care in November 2019.
The company plans to use the current investment from General Atlantic to upgrade its clinical and civil infrastructure across its network and to augment comprehensive care capabilities across key specialties in each of the markets it serves.
“We hope to build Ujala Cygnus into the leading platform for affordable healthcare in Northern India,” Shantanu Rastogi, Managing Director and Head of India at General Atlantic.
The healthcare landscape in India’s tier-II and tier-III markets presents persistent challenges, with the current ecosystem primarily served by government hospitals and small-to-mid-sized nursing homes led by individual doctors.
“We’ve witnessed numerous doctors relocating from metropolitan areas to places like Agra, Varanasi, and Jammu, drawn by the prospect of delivering quality care and achieving positive outcomes in communities close to their roots,” said Shuchin Bajaj, founder director of Ujala Cygnus.
Despite excelling in primary care, these facilities lack a multi-speciality outlook, leading to a significant outflow of patients to nearby urban areas. Operating with a unique asset-lite model, Ujala Cygnus establishes long-term partnerships with hospitals, facilitating the expansion of its reach.