Diabeto- Breaking new ground in diabetes and disease management

Diabetes is a silent killer and the 5^th leading cause of death in the world. InIndia alone, approximately 4 crore people suffer from diabetes and close to 346 million people suffer from diabetes worldwide. Aside from the medical implications a patient also has the arduous task of maintaining their own records, visiting their diabetologist every week for checkups and checking sugar levels on a daily basis.This where Diabeto can play a major role, it is a non-intrusive Bluetooth enabled device that connects to a glucometer and transmits data to your mobile. The Diabeto device can transmit to any diabetes mobile application. The free Diabeto app will also have multiple utilities that can check your blood sugar levels, give history, suggest diet, notify the physician etc.

Shreekant Pawar, Co-Founder of Diabeto spoke to YourStory to tell us more about Diabeto.

How Diabeto works

Glucometers give you information on sugar levels but nothing more. The Diabeto hardware takes that vital information and makes it understandable. Shreekant explains “Diabeto is a hardware device that plugs into your Glucometer and wirelessly transmits your sugar reading to any diabetes mobile application for easy tracking and manageability of your diabetes.”The team behind Diabeto

The entrepreneurs behind Diabeto all have rich histories; Shreekant himself has been a part of many startups as have the rest of the team .He details the teams Entrepreneurial backgrounds saying “All my life, I have been a startup guy; my first stint was at Yousendit.com where I was their 5^th employee. I was working directly with the co-founders and managing marketing/advertising and revenue. I then committed the biggest mistake of my life, MBA from Northampton, UK, returned to India, started a video animation website which was angel funded and sold it. I then co-founded a mobile apps company inBangalore, grew it to 70 people with annual revenues of $250,000.”

“Hemanshu Jain, who manages operations at Diabeto, is my childhood friend, we got together started working on this idea and managed to get angel funding from Amir Shaikh, whose claim to fame was Yousendit.com. He was one of the co-founder of Yousendit.com, and later he joined the team full time. Amir looks after theUSmarket and is based inNew Jersey. He is the CEO of Diabeto.”

On other products they will launch

Disease management systems are few and far between. Apps that exist for disease tracking and data collection present the challenge of manual entry which deters many users. We asked if they had solutions to other diseases as well and Shreekant replied “We are definitely working on future products and are working on a blood pressure management device.”

On the revenue model

The Diabeto app will be free to download and use but to get the full features one will require the bird shaped hardware device they have made. The device is thus the cornerstone of their business idea and they plan to generate revenue by:-

1. Direct selling of the hardware
2. Releasing API’s for third party diabetes applications.
3. Integrating Diabeto with existing hospital EHR’s (Electronic Health Records)
4. Future cloud compatibility and subscription model.

Challenges currently faced

Much like any other hardware and software developer the team at Diabeto has had their share of teething problems. However unlike most they seem to have their product well in hand. Shreekant says that the only areas that currently need attention are “Moving fast to establish distributor relationships around the world, support systems (since there is a physical component involved) and to get the quality certifications.”

The vision at Diabeto

The team has created a judicious mix of technology and applied it to a problem that plagues many people the world over. Their focus is on disease management for the long haul and their vision clearly states it. Sreekant states “We see ourselves as a company that would leverage the web/mobile for easy manageability of diseases/disorders. In the future, we want to target other disorders and help make the disease management an easier process."

Despite the product still being in the final stages of development the potential in Diabeto has been acknowledged by its inclusion in the 5^th batch of the Startup Chile program.Start-Up Chile is a program of the Chilean Government to attract world-class early stage entrepreneurs to start their businesses in Chile. Undoubtedly their future innovations will help many long suffering people to better manage their lives and diseases. To view their product go to http://www.diabe.to/