During the first wave of Covid, even as I tried to remain calm in my operation, one sound kept me on edge-ambulance sirens. We went to sleep with their wailing ringing in our ears. We woke up to them. They punctuated our work just as they interrupted our dinner conversations. Ambulances were seemingly everywhere, and they were in a tearing hurry. Despite this, the few times someone we knew needed an ambulance, it was like finding a needle in a haystack. Yes, these were extraordinary circumstances, but India's ambulance shortage is a problem even at the best of times. While India has around one ambulance for every 91,000 citizens—slightly better than the WHO's recommendation—this says nothing about their distribution. Quality, too, is an issue—only 1,467 out of India's 1,601 advanced life support vehicles have functional ventilators. StanPlus believes it is the solution to this problem. The Hyderabad-based firm has spent the last six years slowly building both its own ambulance fleet and serving as an ambulance aggregator. Today, it has 200 vehicles of its own and it aggregates 2,400 third-party ambulances. Most recently, as startups of every shape and size began offering services in under 10 minutes, StanPlus hit the headlines by promising ambulance access in under eight minutes. This eight-minute goal is, in all likelihood, just a signal to investors. Indeed, StanPlus raised $20 million in January on the back of this pitch. Attracting investment, though, was the easy part. The harder part is what's to come—turning StanPlus profitable. The company has been loss-making for every year of its existence, a result of the high costs of maintaining a fleet of ambulances. Before its most recent fundraise, say former employees, StanPlus was running on fumes, even delaying the payment of salaries and incentives. Two of its three founders left during the pandemic.
With investors in tow, can StanPlus turn things around at last?