WA investors sink $325M in Asian healthcare venture

An Asian healthcare venture backed by Seattle investors has raised another round of cash, bringing its fund to $325 million, with an eye to building out 39 facilities across several Asian countries by the end of the decade. Seattle investment firm Columbia Pacific has already raised $135 million to go after the healthcare market in India. Its Asian venture, Columbia Asia, has 13 facilities in Malaysia, India, Indonesia and Vietnam. This week, Columbia Asia announced that it had raised a large additional round of funding, bringing its total equity to $325 million. The company's growth plans are built, in part, on the expansion of private health insurance in Asia, where 70 percent of revenues come from insurer reimbursement.

Columbia Asia's investors started out in Malaysia, but they're particularly excited by the market in India, which grew at about 9 percent last year, but still lacks Western-style healthcare services. Right now it has 1.5 beds per 1,000 people, while the developed world averages four to eight beds per 1,000 people. To get started, Columbia Asia starts with small facilities, such as a hospital of 65 adult beds costing $15 million to $16 million. Such a hospital might see 8,000 patients a month and bring in $1 million per month.

To learn more about this venture:
- read this Seattle Times article [1]

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