Priyadarshi Mohapatra, Founder and CEO, CureBay Technologies, is an industry veteran and serial entrepreneur known for building high-performance teams and driving innovation across global technology companies and startups.
Before founding CureBay, he held leadership roles at Google, Microsoft, SAP, Avaya, and Sun Microsystems, contributing to major growth initiatives including Google Cloud in India and Microsoft’s Consumer & Devices business.
Driven to address healthcare inequity, he launched CureBay, a rapidly growing rural health-tech platform with 190+ eClinics and 1,500+ Swasthya Mitras, serving over 10.5 lakh patients and recently securing $21 million in Series B funding.
How is CureBay reimagining health assurance to better serve rural and underserved communities?
At CureBay, we believe healthcare should focus on sustaining wellness rather than just treating illness. Through our Payvider model, we combine care delivery, financing, and digital infrastructure to bring primary healthcare to the last mile. Our eClinics and community health workers, SwasthyaSurakhyaks, help families access consultations, diagnostics, telemedicine, and preventive monitoring early, reducing delayed treatment and medical debt while making healthcare continuous, preventive, and community-driven.
Do you believe hybrid healthcare models — combining digital platforms with physical clinics — can significantly improve healthcare access in remote regions?
Rural healthcare needs a hybrid model that blends trusted physical infrastructure with scalable digital platforms. At CureBay, eClinics serve as local healthcare anchors, while digital tools enable teleconsultations, diagnostics management, and patient onboarding. Community health workers connect villagers to these services, ensuring both access and continuity of care. This approach allows patients to receive physical examinations when needed while accessing specialists digitally, creating a system where technology strengthens human trust and expands healthcare access for underserved communities.
What structural challenges do insurers and healthcare providers face when trying to serve remote and underserved populations?
The biggest challenge is that traditional healthcare systems are built around urban hospitals rather than distributed primary care networks. In rural areas, three key barriers persist: delayed primary care leading to preventable crises, limited infrastructure that restricts hospital-centric insurance models, and financial shocks when families face medical emergencies. When care is accessed only during crises, costs rise for both patients and insurers. Embedding healthcare within communities through clinics, digital platforms, and local health workers can shift the system from reactive treatment to proactive prevention, reducing costs and improving outcomes.
What approaches are most effective in increasing healthcare and insurance awareness in villages and small towns?
In rural India, healthcare awareness grows through trust and community engagement rather than advertising. At CureBay, SwasthyaSurakhyaks—local community health workers—educate families on preventive care, conduct screenings, and help them enrol in health assurance programs using simple digital tools. Through regular clinic visits, digital check-ins, and community interactions, healthcare becomes part of daily life. As people experience accessible care and predictable costs, awareness gradually turns into adoption.
In emerging rural healthcare ecosystems, how do you balance affordability with comprehensive healthcare coverage?
Affordability comes from redesigning healthcare economics rather than reducing coverage. Traditional systems depend on hospitalisation-driven revenue, while CureBay focuses on preventive care and early intervention to lower long-term treatment costs. Our subscription-based health assurance model replaces unpredictable medical bills with affordable, predictable payments, enabling families to access consultations, diagnostics, and preventive care without financial stress while promoting a system that rewards keeping people healthy
What inspired you to build a healthcare solution focused on underserved communities, and what advice would you offer to aspiring entrepreneurs in this sector?
The inspiration came from observing a fundamental paradox in healthcare — the system often profits when people fall sick, rather than when they stay healthy. This realisation led us to design a model where our success depends on the well-being of our members. When people remain healthy through preventive care and early intervention, the system becomes economically sustainable and socially impactful.
