New Delhi, June 8 -- The former chief financial officer of Verlinvest-controlled fertility chain Ferty9 Fertility Center is setting up a healthcare platform and is in talks with investors to raise capital for the venture.
Amit Mangal, who served as CFO of Ferty9 between 2023 and 2025, is setting up a platform focussed on the IVF (in-vitro fertilization) space after leaving the Verlinvest-backed company in April last year, he told VCCircle.
Mangal plans to raise $60-70 million (Rs 573-669 crore) from private equity investors to fund the platform and said discussions are at an advanced stage. However, he declined to disclose the names of the investors and said the platform's name is yet to be finalized.
Following the fundraise, the platform will acquire an "anchor" asset, likely an existing and well-established IVF brand, while retaining the acquired company's identity.
Potential acquisition targets have already been identified, and Mangal said he has held preliminary "discussions" with some of them. The first anchor acquisition is expected to be a chain generating at least Rs 50 crore ($5.2 million) in annual revenue, he noted.
"The platform... is something closer to my heart and is a higher-priority area at this stage," Mangal said. "I've been giving presentations to various private equity funds for investment, and we have already identified the assets that will be acquired."
Market dynamics
Asked what prompted him to set up a single-specialty platform, Mangal said the opportunity stems from the stage of evolution of India's fertility market. He said India's fertility sector is now at a similar inflection point to where organized healthcare was about a decade ago.
India's IVF market was valued at nearly $1 billion in 2025 and is projected to reach $3.5 billion by 2034, growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of over 14% between 2026 and 2034 according to IMARC Group.
"Demand is climbing as parenthood is delayed and stigma fades, regulation is finally formalizing a field of standalone clinics in favor of credible, professionally-run chains, and private equity is actively scouting platforms to consolidate around," Mangal said. "The clinic on the corner can't raise capital, can't standardize outcomes, and increasingly can't keep pace on compliance. That gap is exactly where a well-funded platform wins," he added.
Mangal, a Hyderabad-based chartered accountant, played a key role at Ferty9 after Verlinvest acquired over 75% stake in the company in a deal valued at roughly $50 million. Appointed CFO in 2023, he helped transition the fertility chain from a promoter-led setup into a professionally managed organization and also drove its organic expansion.
Before joining Ferty9, Mangal served as CFO of AI-driven digital pathology startup SigTuple for five years, where he was instrumental in setting up its diagnostic chain, Humain Diagnostics. He also oversaw SigTuple's $30 million Series B and Series C funding rounds from investors such as Accel, Trusted Insight, and Endiya Partners.
Mangal is also the founder and managing partner of Opulix Advisory Services, a boutique mid-market investment banking firm. Capitalizing on a wave of growth-stage companies "raising and selling for the first time", Mangal said the firm focuses on sectors such as healthcare, consumer, NBFCs, technology, and deep-tech.
Game plan
Mangal said the new healthcare platform will focus "strictly" on scaling the high-margin IVF business during the first one to three years. Over the long term, he sees expanding into a broader women-and-child healthcare ecosystem to capture the full patient lifecycle.
While IVF will be the starting point, the next phase of the strategy will involve acquiring mother-and-childcare assets to create a more comprehensive care platform, he said. IVF treatments potentially lead to childbirth and, in some cases, neonatal intensive care services, making adjacent specialities a natural extension of the business, he added.
The platform will pursue a hub-and-spoke model to capture market share in both tier I and tier II/III cities. The hubs will be full-service hospitals with operating theaters for procedures, while spokes will comprise smaller clinics focussed on consultancy and ultrasound services.
These spokes will act as "feeders" for the hubs, allowing patients access to routine services closer to home and travel to the main facility only for key procedures like egg retrieval and embryo transfer.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from VC Circle.