India's Trivitron Healthcare drew in a massive $75 million investment (Rs 400 crore) that the company will use to accelerate its evolution from a medical device and equipment distributor into a first-run manufacturer of medical imaging and lab diagnostics products. The money enables executives to advance their plan to become a global player in both sectors.
Fidelity Growth Partners India, the India-based private equity arm of Fidelity Worldwide Investment, committed the cash, which allowed investors ePlanet Ventures and Headline Capital to make partial exits from their commitment to Trivitron. The new investment follows reports earlier this year that U.S. medical device giant Medtronic ($MDT) had been negotiating with Trivitron Healthcare for a possible equity stake, though it is unclear if Trivitron would still seek that additional investment.
Trivitron will use its substantially enhanced bank account, in part, to boost its ownership of imaging accessories company Kiran Medical Systems and to beef up distribution operations throughout South East Asia, the Middle East and Africa. Plans also call for using the new funding to boost product development and seek out both potential companies and promising technologies to snatch up in the U.S. and Europe.
China's rapidly developing devices and medical equipment sector offers a model for what's happening here. In China, local entrepreneurs are fast becoming dominant domestic forces in the medical device and equipment business, and many are now turning to the global markets. Trivitron hopes to help duplicate the same trend in India, company co-founder G.S.K. Velu said in a statement.
"Fidelity with its vast knowledge in the medical devices space in China, the U.S.A. and Europe will be able to add substantial value to Trivitron in becoming a global player in the imaging and lab diagnostics segments," Velu said.
Trivitron, which launched in 2007, is already a wholesale distributor and product support company in medical device and equipment areas including imaging, lab diagnostics, cardiology, critical and renal care and ophthalmology. But, as the funding announcement notes, Trivitron has in recent years been plotting to be a primary medical manufacturer itself. The company launched a 25-acre medical technology park in Chennai in 2009 designed to house more than 15 medical technology manufacturing facilities to serve Trivitron's various subsidiaries and joint ventures. Trivitron is already partnering with Hitachi-Aloka in Japan to make ultrasound equipment and with Biosystems in Spain to manufacture reagents for lab diagnostics.
- read the release
- here's the Economic Times' take
- check out the Business Standard's story