Ratan Tata invests in medical emergency response firm MUrgency

MUrgency is slated to launch services in Amritsar and Jalandhar in the last week of May and cover the entire state by June end.

Tata Sons Chairman Emeritus Ratan Tata has invested in San Francisco-based medical emergency response startup MUrgency Inc.

Financial details of the deal were not disclosed. "He (Tata) clearly wanted us to launch and grow the network in India first before taking it overseas. Mr Tata's investment in MUrgency will help attract leading talent to the company and major partnerships beyond India," MUrgency Inc Fonder Shaffi Mather said in a statement.

Founded in 2014 in Silicon Valley and incubated out of Stanford ChangeLabs, MUrgency recently received investments from Kris Gopalakrishnan and S D Shibulal led Axilor Ventures.

The company launched its service in Tricity area in Punjab on February 16, with a responder network of 36 hospital emergency rooms, over 40 ambulances and more than 350 medical professionals.

MUrgency is slated to launch services in Amritsar and Jalandhar in the last week of May and cover the entire state by June end. The company plans to go pan-India by 2018 and around the world by 2020.

The company claims to make emergency response available with just one tap on a mobile phone in under nine minutes in urban areas.

MUrgency will use the proceeds of the funding to augment technology and scale operations besides leveraging Tata's experience and network as a global business leader to develop the emergency response network globally through appropriate partnerships.

Ratan Tata has made more than 25 investments in startups in the last two years. Healthcare firms that have benefitted include Lybrate, Swasth India and Invictus Oncology.

Apart from MUrgency, Tata's overseas investments include Boston-based wind energy startup Altaeros Energies, China's largest smartphone maker Xiaomi and Singapore-based Crayon Data, a big data analytics firm.

"While our primary goal is to develop emergency medical response network, we are widening our service to be an inclusive and comprehensive medical service platform on your mobile phone. The app is live on iOS and Android app stores and several features are accessible across the world already," Sweta Mangal, director, Global Emergency Response, MUrgency said.