NEWS: Indian American's health portal attracts $32 mn in VC funds

[Frederick Noronha <fred@bytesforall.org>]

Indian American's health portal attracts $32 mn in VC funds

by Sukhjit Purewal, India Abroad News Service

Sunnyvale, (California), Jan 12 - Ehealthinsurance, an Internet-based
provider of health insurance policies, which has an Indian American as its
chairman, has attracted $32 million in a third round of venture capital (VC)
funding.

The funds for ViP Patel's company have come from new investors like Quest
Mark Partners and the Sprout Group (Credit Suisse First Boston). Previous
investors like Kleiner Perkins, Caufield & Byers, Goldman Sachs and
Lightspeed Ventures Partners also contributed.

Founded in 1997, the company offers more than 4,000 health plans from 54
health insurance carriers. Patel is the chairman of the company while Gary
Lauer is its CEO.

Company officials said the capital would be used for additional market
expansion and for software development to enable more families and small
businesses to use ehealthinsurance.

Last month, Patel challenged the U.S. Congress during a congressional
briefing to reduce the number of uninsured Americans in half by 2010. The
three suggestions he made then were -- to provide tax credits for the
uninsured, give subsidies for high-risk pools that provide health insurance
to those who are hard to insure, and finally to create safe harbors for
uninsured small businesses and their carriers to encourage partial
reimbursement of employees for an individual health plan without the
restrictions of a group plan.

--India Abroad News Service