Recently medtech startup Agatsa, founded by electronics duo Rahul Rastogi and Neha Rastogi, won the very prestigious Aegis Graham Bell Award. Agatsa has been innovating in medical devices space since 2015, and have come up with a pocket ECG device SanketLife which is as accurate as a hospital grade ECG machine and as simple to use as using your email. ?We talked with Neha and Rahul to discuss how they feel about winning the award and how SanketLife is saving lakhs of hearts.

How are you feeling after winning this award?

Rahul: It always feels good and motivated when you win an award. This award is a little more special due to the grilling jury round and due diligence that was done to finalize the winners. The great companies who were finalists along with us, and how our hard work was recognised. Winning against a good competition is always special.

How did you come up with this startup idea and how much time did you take to complete research and development of SanketLife?

Neha:?We both are electronics engineers and when Rahul’s father was diagnosed with heart condition, we decided to develop a miniature ECG machine, because there was a huge gap in market at that time and no machine or tool was available to monitor or quickly diagnose heart problem. With 3-4 years of R&D efforts, we came up with our first prototype, which was appreciated by doctors a lot. In fact, by the recommendation of doctors only, we decided to not launch just the 6 lead ECG product but make a full 12-Lead medically accurate device and then launch it in market. Since, we had always collected feedback from medical and healthcare professionals we were able to innovate and make a medically correct device which is not just medically accurate but also super simple to use. You can use the device anywhere, anytime and anyone with no or minimal training can use it.

How many customers are using it right now and what is their response?

Rahul:?We have around 4 products in market right now, of them three are in cardiac care and diagnostics range under our flagship product brand SanketLife is an IoT platform that consists of a portable and touch-based digital ECG machine that has been designed to make heart health screening easier and more affordable for everyone a smartphone app and a state-of-the-art cloud. The device is equivalent in medical accuracy to hospital-grade ECG machines and is 1/10th the size and cost. It can be carried in a pocket anywhere and can be operated by anyone with minimal or no training. This is very useful for detecting or diagnosing a heart disease and also monitoring and managing it. Both the doctors and heart patients use our device. Our other product is under Brand Name Multivital. It is another useful multi-parameter device, which we launched during the Covid and can monitor multi parameters - ECG monitor, Spo2, and Temperature with just a touch. There are many devices in the cost of one device people were getting four parameters. The complete technology is very frugal and affordable which scales down costs.

How do you sell the device??

Neha:?We are selling in direct to customer business model till now and it has picked up well. I mean till some years back people could not think of buying medical device online. But now, even the doctors purchase it, use and give us their feedback. Now we are moving to B2B model as well and rapidly scaling up to B2B partnerships with digital health companies who can integrate our device into their platforms and tying up with hospitals, diagnostic labs, and small clinics for its products and ECG review services.

What are your future plans? Are you innovating more devices or this is the only product you will work on?

Rahul:?We are ready with our AI driven Data Interpretation and prediction platform. The platform is currently under Trials and will help doctors, insurance, End users and Government in informed decision making. We are also coming up with many new products for athletes, gym goers and for doctors.