I recently received Dial 1298 for Ambulance’s first newsletter. 1298 is an ambulance service in Mumbai. In 2007, Acumen Fund took a $1.5 million equity stake in 1298 to fund expansion of their service. Since then, 1298 (the number you call when you need an ambulance) has grown faster than expected in Mumbai and is already expanding their service to two new districts in Kerala. The company has captured a lot of press attention, with coverage from the Economic Times, DNA, the Hindustan Times, and others. 1298 currently has 51 ambulances which have taken more than 50,000 trips since inception.
Before 1298 launched its service, Mumbai had only about 12 working ambulances that fitted with intensive care equipment (which were primarily linked to specific hospitals); 9 out of 10 trips were to transport dead bodies. These weren’t ambulances; they were hearses.
1298 is one of a number of Acumen Fund investments that defies easy classification. The operating “special purpose vehicle” organization is structured as a for-profit business company that integrates smart cross-subsidies to achieve a social mission, while the supervising umbrella organization “Ambulance Access for All Foundation” is a not for profit. (If you ever needed proof that our terminology isn’t keeping up with what entrepreneurs are doing on the ground, then there you have it).
The cross subsidy model is deceptively simple. Patients who want to go to a private hospital in a full-service ambulance - staffed with a doctor - pay 1,500 rupees (about US$35). Those who go to public hospitals pay either half price or nothing. 1298’s leadership is committed to having 15-20% of the company’s calls be serviced free or at reduced cost. This simple logic takes away the cumbersome process of identifying who can afford to pay and who cannot.
As such, anyone in Mumbai who needs ambulance service can dial 1298 and, thanks to the magic of GPS and Google Maps, one of 51 world-class ambulances arrives in about 15 minutes to provide care and transport. The service is world-class, modeled on London Ambulance Service (down to the forms the paramedics fill out on the ambulance).
So what is 1298? Classifying it as a “social enterprise” seems to sell it short, since 1298 is becoming the provider of ambulance service for all of Mumbai, a city of 22 million people. However, because of its social mission, 1298 now finds itself the recipient of donated ambulances from non-profit ambulance services that were not financially viable. By combining world-class operational skills with a social mission, 1298 can take on private invested capital (from the likes of Acumen Fund) as well as donations in kind from individuals and NGOs. Their social mission allows them to partner in ways a profit-maximizing business venture never could.
It is easy, seeing 1298’s success so to date, to underestimate what 1298’s founders, Shaffi Mather, Sweta Mangal, Ravi Krishna, Naresh Jain and Manish Sancheti, have accomplished. As co-founder Ravi Krishna described when we met a few months back, “Doctors told us we were insane to try this. Others said it was impossible. When I heard this, I knew we couldn’t go wrong. What’s wrong with an insane man trying to do the impossible? You have to succeed more than people say you will. And now everyone wants to copy us.”
Replication in other cities is now front and center for 1298; hopefully, their success will serve as a model to others interested in creating a new mold of what enterprises can accomplish to bring service to all.
Tags: health
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