Online health and wellness portal AyurUniverse raises $1 M from Air Deccan investor Ladhani family

AyurUniverse, an online health and wellness portal, has raised $1 million from Air Deccan investor Ladhani family. Founded by Vijay Kumar Karai in 2016, AyurUniverse provides customised Ayurveda and yoga packages towards ailment management, wellness, and training.

AyurUniverse’s platform allows customers to search, choose and book a wellness package of their choice without any intermediaries. A team of doctors and yoga experts offer online consultation to customers who want to understand how Ayurveda can help manage their health concerns, while a team of advisers help customers choose the right package at the right centre, based on requirement and intent. The website uses advanced AI analytics to give its customers unbiased user rating of wellness centres.

It claims to have a customer base from over 190 countries, providing access to over 2,500 wellness packages from across 300 verified wellness centres in India, Sri Lanka and Nepal. 

In a press statement, Vijay Karai, CEO, AyurUniverse, said, “The emerging global middle class, rising disposable incomes, and growing consumer interest in health, travel, and new experiences are all fueling strong demand and propelling wellness tourism, which was pegged at $563.2 billion in 2015 and growing at an annual 10 percent CAGR. We would be using the funds raised in developing disruptive AI and VR technology to enhance customer experience on the portal.”

Commenting on the investment, S.N. Ladhani said, "Indian wellness such as Ayurveda and yoga have immense potential in India and the rest of the world. However, the lack of credible marketing platforms has diluted and restricted the growth of these traditional wellness systems. AyurUniverse, with its technology-driven platform and customer-centric approach, specifically addresses this issue and is uniquely positioned to promote Ayurveda and yoga and disrupt the hegemony that western travel agents have over the holistic wellness market." 

India’s wellness travel industry is estimated to be a $2.54 billion industry currently and estimated to double by 2020. According to the Global Wellness Institute, the wellness economy, which encompasses 10 diverse sectors, was worth an estimated $3.7 trillion in 2015 growing at a 10 percent CAGR. The wellness economy now represents more than five percent of global economic output and is almost half the size of all global health expenditures, which reached $7.6 trillion in 2014.