At Kokoro Bharat, we don’t see homecare as an extension of hospital care, we see it as the place where real recovery begins. The hospital treats the illness; homecare restores life. It’s where medical support meets everyday living, where families regain confidence, and patients remember who they were before the diagnosis.
Here’s the full Q & A:
1. Can you tell us a little more about KOKORO Bharat first to kick off this interview?
We’re India’s first and still the only private healthtech company that’s fully approved across all four modules of ABDM, the government’s Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission. That means we don’t just operate in the healthcare system; we’re helping shape the national backbone for digital health- things like health IDs, e-records, consent, and interoperability.
But for us, this isn’t about tech bragging rights. It’s about fixing something that everyone in India has experienced firsthand. When someone at home falls sick, the journey doesn’t end at the hospital. It spills into insurance claims, test reports, home nurses, medicines and none of these systems talk to each other. People are left managing chaos at the very moment they should be focusing on care.
2. Could you walk us through the vision behind launching KOKORO Bharat?
Healthcare today feels like a patchwork quilt: one app for doctor booking, one for tests, one for pills, one for “wellness.” But what we really need is continuity, care that follows you home, that connects your data, your doctor, and your day-to-day health decisions.
Our vision is to make everyday healthcare feel accessible, affordable, and emotionally intelligent. A lot of people ask us, “What does Kokoro even mean?” It’s a Japanese word that translates roughly to the heart-mind-soul connection, the place where emotion and intention meet. It captures what we’re trying to build: not another cold, tech-heavy interface, but a system that actually feels like it cares.
Honestly, the idea didn’t come from a business case study, it came from lived chaos.We’ve all seen how confusing it can get when a parent falls ill; a pile of bills, prescriptions, and phone numbers with no coordination. Kokoro Bharat was born out of that frustration, to turn that mess into something that feels coordinated and human.
3. Technology is transforming healthcare across the value chain. How do you differentiate your product or service from competitors in the market?
Most players in digital health are trying to digitize healthcare, we’re trying to connect it. That’s a big difference.
You see, the average Indian patient still juggles multiple touchpoints when they fall sick so much so that you end up becoming the project manager of your own illness. Kokoro’s entire technology layer is designed to take that burden off people. We want to make sure the nurse’s vitals, the doctor’s notes, the lab’s results, and the insurer’s approvals all live on one secure thread, powered by ABDM standards, with the patient in full control. It’s not about “fancy AI” it’s about making healthcare behave like a coordinated system, not a jigsaw puzzle.
4. What are the key focus areas for KOKORO Bharat?
Our three big anchors are Homecare, Insurance, and Sexual Health. And we take each very seriously.
Homecare is our heart. India has over 7 crore senior citizens, but less than 1% have access to structured homecare. Hospitals are overcrowded, families are stretched thin. We want to make medical-grade homecare as mainstream as hospital OPDs, with trained nurses, physiotherapists, oxygen support, and equipment all available through one platform.
Insurance: India’s health insurance coverage is still painfully low. Most plans are built for people who already have access and awareness. We’re building for Bharat, for the everyday family that wants protection without the paperwork, jargon, or shock at claim time. Insurance, to us, isn’t about selling policies; it’s about making health security simple, fair, and actually usable.
Sexual Wellness: a space where silence has done more harm than taboo. We’re curating India’s most trusted, stigma-free sexual health space, designed with credibility and supported by a full medical ecosystem.
5. Homecare is clearly at the heart of what you’re building. Tell us more about Kokoro’s approach to care at home ?
Homecare is where healthcare stops being a system and becomes a relationship. It’s also where India’s health story is quietly being rewritten, from hospital beds to living rooms.
At Kokoro Bharat, we don’t see homecare as an extension of hospital care, we see it as the place where real recovery begins. The hospital treats the illness; homecare restores life. It’s where medical support meets everyday living, where families regain confidence, and patients remember who they were before the diagnosis.
Our philosophy, “Heal with Love,” isn’t a marketing line. It’s a design principle. Every part of our homecare experience, from the way our nurses are trained, to how we track vitals and schedule follow-ups is built to balance clinical precision with emotional intelligence. And yes, technology runs through all of it but the patient never feels the tech. They just feel supported. That’s the point.
The larger reason we’re betting big on homecare is that it’s the most humane, scalable, and economically sensible way to fix India’s healthcare load. Hospitals are overrun, families are stressed, and yet 70% of conditions can be managed safely at home with the right setup. Homecare turns that data into dignity.
At the end of the day, healing doesn’t just happen because of good medicine; it happens when the system remembers you’re human. Our job at Kokoro Bharat is to make that the default, not the exception.
6. Going forward, how do you see KOKORO Bharat evolving? What will the growth drivers be?
Our growth won’t come from app downloads, it’ll come from trust networks.The next phase is about embedding Kokoro Bharat in real communities – in housing societies, local clinics, and small-town pharmacies, so people experience Kokoro Bharat before they ever open the app. And culturally, we’re working to make health conversations more normal, through storytelling, collaborations, and everyday nudges that make health feel less like an “event” and more like a habit.
7. What are the challenges you face to acquire customers?
Healthcare doesn’t have “customers.” It has families in crisis, making decisions under stress. That’s the reality. Our challenge is timing, most people remember you when they need you. So the question is: how do you earn their trust before that happens?
We’re doing it the long way by showing up in places that already have credibility: resident associations, doctor networks, and local hospitals. Because in healthcare, referrals are worth more than ads. Also, people don’t fully trust digital health yet and honestly, we get that. Our job isn’t to change behaviour overnight; it’s to earn it one family, one homecare visit at a time.
8. The best businesses are built around passion. What are your views on this?
I think passion is like caffeine, it gets you started, but it can’t keep you running forever.
What really sustains a business like ours is stubborn purpose.Healthcare will test your patience, your empathy, your financial models all at once. If you’re in it just because you’re “passionate,” you’ll burn out fast. What helps is finding meaning in the mess, remembering that every mundane operational decision eventually touches a real person’s life. That’s the kind of “passion” we believe in.
9. Finally, do you think India’s medical community is ready to embrace new technologies?
Absolutely, but they want proof, not promises. Doctors and hospitals aren’t anti-tech. They’re just exhausted by half-baked solutions that add work instead of saving time. When they see tech that actually helps them care better, adoption follows naturally. We’ve seen it with ABDM: once a doctor experiences how a digital health ID can eliminate paperwork, they don’t go back. So yes, India’s medical community is ready, we just have to stop talking at them and start building for them.
