Supriya (name changed) from Tamil Nadu gave birth to her premature daughter at 32 weeks. Her baby faced hypothermia and needed specialised care.

After 45 days in an incubator, Supriya’s baby, Kavya, became a healthy toddler. However, the financial strain and emotional toll were immense, with Supriya only able to see her daughter during specific breastfeeding times.

Manoj Sanker, a resident of Karnataka, witnessed his own parents’ struggle when his premature brother was born. This experience fueled his desire to create a solution in neonatal care.

Pratyusha Pareddy is an engineer with a master's in Industrial and Product Design from NID. Growing up in a family of doctors, she was inspired to use design for social impact.

Manoj, along with Pratyusha, co-founded NemoCare Wellness in July 2017. Their startup launched Raksha, a wearable device that monitors vital parameters in newborns to aid in timely medical intervention.

During their 2016 fellowship at IIT-Hyderabad, Manoj and Pratyusha discovered a critical shortage of neonatal monitoring devices, particularly in government hospitals.

“We wanted to create something impactful to save newborns, who are the most vulnerable,” says Manoj.

Raksha is a wearable device fitted on a baby’s foot, monitoring heart rate, oxygen levels, and more. It helps doctors and nurses track babies’ vitals and intervene when necessary.

It connects wirelessly to a central platform, allowing nurses to monitor 40-50 babies simultaneously. It even supports kangaroo mother care by providing ICU-grade monitoring while babies are with their mothers.

With initial grants from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the founders spent 4.5 years testing prototypes across hospitals in Telangana, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, and Punjab.

Raksha has already helped monitor over 20,000 neonates (as of April 2024), improving care and possibly saving lives. The goal is to ensure the device reaches hospitals worldwide, regardless of economic status.

The company provides devices to government hospitals through CSR initiatives and charges small hospitals Rs 600 per monitored baby (as of 2024). Corporate hospitals pay for the full device cost.

NemoCare is developing an AI platform for neonatal units. “This platform will help predict when a newborn is going to fall sick and any long-term complications he/she may face,” explains Manoj.

The duo raised Rs 1 crore in funding from Aman Gupta on Shark Tank India Season 3 to further develop their AI platform.

“I found my purpose as a human and an engineer the day I saw our product impact a tiny life,” says Manoj.