Digital therapeutics · Diabetes reversal
Breathe Well-being
A New Delhi area program that coaches people with Type 2 diabetes off medication by phone and through a mobile app. It raised roughly $12 million from 2021 to 2023, then cut its India team twice and pivoted the business toward the United States.
A phone call, twice a week
The pitch is deliberately unglamorous. No scanner, no clinic visit, no wearable required. A person with Type 2 diabetes signs up, gets matched with a coach, and takes calls about twice a week focused on diet, movement and sleep, backed by an app for lesson content, tracking and a peer community. The company describes it as a way to help users stop or reduce diabetes medication rather than manage the disease indefinitely.
That framing sits inside a wider category of coaching-first digital therapeutics, the same model used by apps like Noom in the United States, applied here to a single, specific outcome: getting a patient's HbA1c down and their pill count lower.
The problem
India carries one of the largest Type 2 diabetes populations in the world, and much of the country's health system reaches patients through a prescription rather than a lifestyle program. Breathe Well-being's founders have described the ambition as building toward what they call a "Diabetes Mukt Bharat," a diabetes free India, betting that coaching and behavior change can do work that medication alone does not.
The company's "No Outcome, No Pay" policy, described in a 2023 funding announcement, ties its own revenue to that same bet: patients are said to pay only if their HbA1c or medication load falls, otherwise the fee is refunded.
Founders
Rohan Verma, a former McKinsey consultant, and Aditya Kaicker, a former Accenture consultant, founded the company in 2020. Corporate records list them as the two directors of Aurogreen Health Private Limited, the entity that operates Breathe Well-being, with Kaicker also recorded as a shareholder. Both had previously founded ClassHop, an edtech company; a Delhi-registered entity called ClassHop Technologies Private Limited shares directors with Aurogreen Health, consistent with that earlier venture. The company joined Y Combinator's Winter 2020 batch.
Money in, then people out
The fundraising and the workforce moved in opposite directions more than once. In June 2021, Breathe Well-being raised $1 million in a pre-Series A round led by 3one4 Capital, with angel investors including Ashish Gupta, former managing director of Helion Ventures, and Anjali Bansal, founder of Avaana Capital. Two months later, in August 2021, it closed a $5.5 million Series A led by Accel, with General Catalyst, 3one4 Capital and Tiger Global's Scott Shleifer participating.
Ten months after that Series A, in June 2022, the company laid off around 50 employees, about 30 percent of its workforce, after it was unable to close a new funding round on the timeline it had hired against. It returned to the market in January 2023 with a $6.14 million pre-Series B (reported as Rs 50 crore) co-led by 3one4 Capital, Accel and General Catalyst, with FounderBank Capital and Supermorpheus also participating.
Two years later, in January 2025, the cycle repeated at larger scale. CEO Rohan Verma told Inc42 that the company had let go of 90 of its 290 India employees; other sources cited by Inc42 and Techstory put the number as high as 120, concentrated in sales, marketing, human resources and technology. Verma said the company had closed a fresh funding round to be announced later; an unnamed source told Inc42 the company was instead short on runway and shifting its focus entirely to the United States, having stopped onboarding new users in India, Australia, New Zealand and Africa. No announcement of that new round, and no update on India operations, was found in later reporting.
What is proven, and what is still claimed
| Evidence | What the record shows | Source type |
|---|---|---|
| Corporate registration | Aurogreen Health Private Limited, CIN U72900HR2020PTC084693, incorporated Jan 13, 2020 in Haryana. Authorized share capital INR 6.0 lakh, paid up capital INR 2.1 lakh as of the most recent filing on record. Registration status recorded as active as of a July 2026 update, which differs from the inactive status carried in this database. | Differs from database |
| Outcome study, as published | An observational study of 181 people with Type 2 diabetes, presented as abstract 707-P at the American Diabetes Association's 2022 scientific sessions. Three cohorts compared the coaching program plus medication, the program plus medication plus a stress reduction module, and medication alone. At four months, HbA1c fell 1.0 to 1.3 percentage points in the two program cohorts versus 0.3 points in the medication only group. By 13 months, medication withdrawal was recorded in 89.3 to 90.9 percent of program participants who stayed engaged. Two of the eight listed authors are disclosed as Breathe Well-being employees. | Public record |
| "Three journals" claim | An investor blog states Breathe Well-being is "the only digital health technology company in Asia with clinical evidence published in three prestigious journals," naming the American Diabetes Association, the European Society of Endocrinology and the American Association of Clinical Endocrinology. Only the ADA conference abstract above was independently located; the other two were not found in a search of PubMed or the journals' own archives. | Not independently found |
| Users and outcomes | The company and its investors have stated an app downloaded by 2 million users, 50,000 users reporting success, more than 95 percent average HbA1c reduction of 1.5 percentage points, more than 98 percent stopping medication, and average weight loss of 5.5 kilograms. These figures come from company and investor channels, not from a peer-reviewed or audited source. | Company-stated |
| Total funding | Summing the three reported rounds (pre-Series A $1M, Series A $5.5M, pre-Series B $6.14M) comes to about $12.6M. Inc42's January 2025 report instead describes the company as having "raised a total of funding over $10 Mn till date," a looser figure that does not exactly reconcile with the summed announcements. | Reports differ |
| FDA or device clearance | Not applicable. Breathe Well-being is a coaching and software service, not a regulated medical device, and no FDA record exists for it. | Not applicable |
| Registered clinical trial | No entry for the company or its program was found in a trial registry search. | Not found |
Read plainly: there is one real, peer-reviewed-adjacent data point, the 2022 ADA abstract, and it shows a modest but real HbA1c edge over medication alone in a small, company-affiliated observational study. Everything past that, the "three journals," the 2 million downloads, the 50,000 successes, comes from the company or its investors and has not been independently verified.
What to watch
- Whether the funding round Rohan Verma said was closed in January 2025 is ever announced, and on what terms.
- Whether Breathe Well-being resumes or formally ends service in India, Australia, New Zealand and Africa, after reports it planned to wind those markets down within six months of the January 2025 layoffs.
- Any published, peer-reviewed follow up to the 2022 ADA abstract, or corroboration of the European Society of Endocrinology and American Association of Clinical Endocrinology claims.
- Whether Aurogreen Health Private Limited's MCA filings show any change in status, directors or capital structure.
In their words
“India is the diabetes capital of the world and we are on a mission to change that. Our aim is a Diabetes Mukt Bharat (Diabetes Free India) with the aim to reverse diabetes for 1 Million Indians by 2025 and we are well on track to achieve that goal. Referral is our strongest growth lever especially in non-metros and more than half our customers come through word of mouth.”
Rohan Verma, co-founder and CEO, January 2023 funding announcement · Company statement
“We have been impressed by how quickly Breathe Well-being is becoming a household name for Type 2 Diabetes & Pre-Diabetes Reversal across Tier 2 and 3 cities of India. I realised the true value of what Rohan and Aditya are building at Breathe Well-being after seeing my own mother go through the program and reduce her HbA1c levels significantly. Hence Accel invested and we continue to back them in their vision of building a Diabetes Mukt Bharat.”
Radhika Ananth, vice president, Accel, January 2023 · Investor
“They have been facing issues with the pricings in India and other countries. They are going to cater to the existing customers and then eventually pull the plug in the next six months. The US market is giving them results and they will focus there.”
Unnamed source, quoted by Inc42, January 2025 · Independent
“the only digital health technology company in Asia with clinical evidence published in three prestigious journals”
3one4 Capital, investor blog post, January 2023 · Investor-stated
Related companies
Sources
- Public recordAurogreen Health Private Limited company page, CIN U72900HR2020PTC084693
- Public record707-P: Effectiveness of Breathe Well-Being Diabetes Reversal Program in Achieving Diabetes Remission
- IndependentBreathe Well-being: A digital well-being program, company listing
- IndependentYC Backed Healthtech Startup Breathe Well-Being Raises $5.5 Mn Led By Accel
- IndependentExclusive: Accel-Backed Breathe Well-being Lays Off 50 Employees To Cut Costs
- IndependentHealthtech Startup Breathe Well-being Secures $6 Mn+ To Help People Reverse Diabetes
- IndependentHealthtech firm Breath Well-being raises $6 mn in pre-Series B round
- IndependentDiabetes reversal startup Breathe Well-being raises Rs 50Cr in funding led by 3One4 Capital, Accel, others
- IndependentExclusive: Accel-Backed Breathe Well-being Fires 100 Employees
- IndependentAccel-Backed Health-Tech Startup Breathe Well-being Cuts 90 Jobs Amid Global Focus
- IndependentBreathe Well Being company profile
- InvestorBreathe Well-Being Closed Rs 50 Crores In Funding
Profile researched and written by Healthcare Discovery. Last updated September 29, 2026.
