- Karan Bajaj’s coding-tutorial startup Whitehat Jr made investors a lot of money
- The entrepreneur is now applying a lot of his past learnings to a new startup that offers coaching for cancer patients
- While Whitehat Jr thrived on marketing and hyperbole, Bajaj has to be cautious with Complement 1
- This new venture tests Bajaj’s ability to move beyond building for an exit to actually running a sustainable business
Enter your email address to receive a daily summary of all our stories.
Karan Bajaj, the controversial founder of Whitehat Jr, is back doing the very thing he said he wouldn’t do.
In 2020, when he
Yet, here he is with Complement 1, a lifestyle-modification app that offers personalised, one-on-one live coaching on exercise, diet, and mental health for cancer patients. Though the over one-year-old startup’s cofounders and team are Indian, it’s headquartered in Delaware and is meant for the American market.
“We are launching in the US first because it is one of the most regulated markets to launch healthcare products in, and that puts a high bar on product efficacy,” said Trupti Mukker, Bajaj’s co-founder at Complement 1. The company already has top oncologists from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) and the American Institute of Cancer Research (AICR) on its board.
The fact that the company doesn’t yet have a solid business model hasn’t stopped venture capitalists from circling, either.
In May, Complement 1 raised $16 million in seed funding from Blume Ventures and Owl Ventures at a $60 million valuation—making it one of the most valuable companies at the seed stage to be built out of India.
Then again, Bajaj’s timing has always been impeccable. First, with Whitehat, which during Covid saw parents falling for its over-zealous marketing and outlandish
“Whitehat was
Share this article with your network
Send the article link to friends or colleagues who might find this story interesting or insightful.
Send the article link to friends or colleagues who might find this story interesting or insightful.