On-demand diagnostic and healthcare services startup Orange Health Labs is betting that its expansion into offline sample collection centres will drive growth in the short to medium term, even as it looks to enter radiology and wearables, according to a top company executive.
The digital-first company’s offline push comes at a time when at-home healthcare, wellness and preventive care are fast becoming priorities in India. In June, the Bengaluru-based company raised $30 million in its Series C funding round led by Iron Pillar. Existing investors Bertelsmann India Investments, Accel India, and General Catalyst also participated in the round.
“The 100 collection centres we have now, they contribute around 20% of the overall revenue,” said co-founder Tarun Bhambra in an interview with Mint. “We do expect that to increase in the next 3-4 years.”
Segments such as on-demand medicine delivery, therapeutics, specialized and elderly care have attracted growing interest from private-market investors, ranging from venture capital firms to private equity funds.
For instance, quick-commerce pharmacy platform Plazza in July in its Series A round from Accel, Elevation Capital and Nexus Venture Partners, with existing investors All In Capital and Better Capital also participating in the round. In August, private equity firm KKR the India operations of Sweden-based healthcare and diagnostics company Medicover AB for $1.4 billion.
Founded in 2020, Orange Health Labs started offline collection points in FY25, and currently operates around 100 of them. Of these, 45 are concentrated across Bengalru, while the rest are spread across the National Capital Region, Hyderabad and most recently, Mumbai.
“The plan now is to add around 80 more centres by the end of this fiscal,” Bhambra said. “Going forward, we’re looking to add roughly 100 centres a year, that’s our range.”
Since its founding, the company’s revenue has risen at a compounded annual growth rate of 62%. Orange Health’s revenue jumped to ₹143 crore in FY26, up from ₹88 crore in FY25, according to filings accessed through Tracxn. Losses also surged to ₹146 crore in the last fiscal, up from ₹87 crore in FY25.
Orange Health, which competes with the likes of Dr Lal PathLabs and Thyrocare Technologies, acknowledged that while it has begun setting up more physical collection centres, the expansion is capital-intensive. The company said it spends about three to four times as much as its competitors to set up and operate its own centres. Bhambra, however, declined to reveal the cost of setting up a sample collection centre. “The collection centres take an average of 6-8 months to break even. The payback thereafter takes about two years to do.”
Orange Health operates a hub-and-spoke model, with a central laboratory serving a 500-km radius through 30 unmanned facilities where collected samples are dropped off and stored in refrigerated units before being transported to the lab.
Once enough samples have been collected, the company transports them to the central laboratory for processing, where they are tested and analysed before reports are sent to customers.
Radiology, and road ahead
The next leg of the offline push is radiology, which will sit in separate, full-service imaging centres rather than the existing blood-and-urine collection points. The first radiology centre is expected to open in Bengaluru this fiscal year, with at least two more planned for FY28.
“Then from there on we will see if we need to raise more capital for expansion of multiple centres across India,” said Bhambra.
But the company’s ambitions go beyond radiology and diagnostics. Eventually, it aims to introduce its own line of wearables and health-monitoring devices.
Part of that plan is already in motion, with the company set to tie up with manufacturers of devices such as blood pressure monitors, glucometers and continuous glucose monitors by integrating its software with them over the next 6-8 months.
However, Bhambra ruled out Orange Health ever entering the hospital business or trying to solve for what he called ‘everything in medicine’. “The last decade and a half has been about unbundling of healthcare. When we say we want to be a health measurement company, it entails everything that you do to measure your health. Today it starts with blood markers. Tomorrow it’ll be scans. And day after that it’ll be devices.”