Diagnostics · India
Redcliffe Labs
A pan-India laboratory network built on cheap tests and doorstep collection. Rs 419 crore of revenue in the year to March 2025, still loss making, and almost no evidence in any United States registry.
Eighty-eight minutes over the hills
On May 19, 2022, a drone lifted off from Gyansu, outside the hill town of Uttarkashi in Uttarakhand, carrying a five kilogram cold box with a patient blood sample inside. Sixty kilometres of aerial distance later, after one battery swap, it landed at Vivek Vihar in Dehradun. A lab there ran the test and returned the result the same day.
By road that trip is 144 kilometres and takes six to eight hours, twelve if a landslide shuts the highway. “But using drone technology this distance was covered in 88 minutes with one battery swap in between,” the founder, Dheeraj Jain, told Mint.
The flight ran with Skye Air Mobility and made Uttarakhand the first Indian state to put drones into diagnostic logistics. It also says what kind of company this is. Redcliffe is not inventing an assay. It is moving a sample.
The problem is distance, and the referral fee
India has more than a hundred thousand laboratories and almost no structure. Organised chains hold about 16 percent of the market, on an Edelweiss analysis cited by YourStory, and roughly 55 percent of industry revenue is decided by referrals from doctors and hospitals. Those referrals carry a price.
Redcliffe attacked the referral first. “We invested in scientists, scientific platforms, and clinical quality, which people don’t do even today,” Jain told YourStory of a first Delhi lab that began with genetic and maternal health testing. The commercial trick came later: sell direct, pay no doctor, price 25 to 60 percent under the established chains. Full body packages ran from Rs 399 to Rs 850 in 2022.
Then the pandemic turned PCR equipment bought for sequencing into a Covid testing business, and consumers started booking collection at home. Redcliffe rebuilt around that habit: an app that routes phlebotomists, pickups by noon, tracked cold boxes, report the same day or the next morning.
Two founders, and a handover
Dheeraj Jain incorporated the business in 2018 after losing two relatives to cancer. He had already founded Redcliffe Capital, the hygiene brand Peesafe and the prenatal diagnostics platform Crysta. His co-founder Aditya Kandoi came from Deloitte, Barclays and American Express.
In December 2024 they swapped seats. Kandoi became chief executive and Jain took the chair. “After being its CEO for 6 years since its inception, I am delighted to welcome my Co-founder Aditya Kandoi to take charge as its CEO,” Jain said. Three months earlier the Series C release had added Ankur Shah as an independent director and Alka Saxena, previously at Dr Lal PathLabs, as chief financial officer.
Growth, then the reckoning
The money came fast: about $2 million in March 2021, $10 million that April, then $61 million in May 2022 led by LeapFrog Investments, with HealthQuad, Schroders, LC Nueva, Growth Spark Ventures, Chiratae Ventures and Alkemi Venture Partners alongside. Jain told the Economic Times the annualised run rate was $55 million to $60 million and that he expected $100 million by September 2022.
It did not get there. Consolidated accounts filed with the Registrar of Companies, as reported by Entrackr, show revenue of Rs 313.86 crore in FY23 and Rs 348.38 crore in FY24, against losses of Rs 345 crore and then Rs 250 crore. The 28 percent cut in losses came mostly out of advertising, down 45 percent to Rs 65.38 crore. Redcliffe spent Rs 1.6 to earn a rupee in FY24.
A $42 million Series C landed in September 2024, led by IFU, Denmark’s development finance institution, with $20 million, LeapFrog adding $15 million. Weeks later the board approved up to Rs 60 crore for Celara Diagnostics in Bengaluru. For FY25 the company reported Rs 419 crore of revenue and an EBITDA margin moving from minus 38 to minus 21 percent.
What is proven, and what is still claimed
| Evidence | What the record shows | Source type |
|---|---|---|
| US registries | No FDA 510(k), no PMA, no ClinicalTrials.gov registration, no NIH or NSF award under any Redcliffe name as of September 22, 2026. The two PubMed hits returned by name matching are unrelated papers. | Not applicable |
| SEC Form D | Redcliffe Lifetech Inc, a Delaware corporation incorporated in 2021, filed a Form D on August 8, 2022 and an amendment the next day. Offering of $46,933,880, all sold, 15 investors, minimum $102,500, Rule 506(b). Sales commission $1,540,097 to o3 Capital Global Private Limited. One related person: Aditya Kandoi, director. | Public record |
| Accreditation | The Noida facility appears in the Central Government Health Scheme empanelment record as accredited by the National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories. Coverage of the 2022 round described 22 labs across 14 cities, “several of which are NABL accredited.” | Public record |
| Accreditation, as worded | The company site lists “NABL Compliant Lab & CC from day one” and says its labs follow NABL and CAP guidelines. Compliant is not accredited. No public count of how many of the 80 labs hold live certificates was found. | Wording differs |
| Peer reviewed work | A quality improvement study in the International Journal of Research in Medical Sciences, December 2023, reporting average sigma across 25 high volume assays rising from 6.4 to 9.2, with glucose moving from 9,224 defects per million opportunities to under one. An anti-mullerian hormone consensus in IJRCOG, December 2024. Neither is an accuracy study against a reference method. | Public record |
| FY25 figures | Rs 419 crore revenue, gross margin over 70 percent, EBITDA margin from minus 38 to minus 21 percent, 2.5 million cases, over 70 percent of volume from Tier II and beyond. Entrackr attributes all of it to the press release, not a filing. | Company-stated |
| Scale claims | 80 labs, over 2,000 collection centres, 1,000 phlebotomists, 220 cities, over 7 million patients since 2018. The 2022 Y Combinator profile says 30 labs and 700 centres in 120 cities; coverage of the same month says 22 labs, 500 centres, 100 cities. None of it is audited. | Company-stated |
| Accuracy claim | The company site says it goes “all out to ensure 99.99% accuracy in every test.” No method, denominator or published support was found. | Company-stated |
Read plainly: the operating record is real. Revenue has grown every year, losses have shrunk two years running, the Registrar of Companies has the numbers, one facility is confirmed NABL accredited in a government list, and the lab has published in a peer reviewed journal. What has never been produced is an independent measure of how accurate the testing is, a count of accredited labs, or an audited version of the scale numbers.
What to watch
- Whether Registrar of Companies filings for FY25 and FY26 match the press release numbers.
- The FY26 target of Rs 560 crore and the promise of EBITDA positive quarters in the second half of that year.
- A published count of NABL accredited labs, which would turn the quality claim into a record.
- More acquisitions. Two are on record and the Series C release said talks were advanced.
- Any accuracy or concordance study. A network testing at this volume could publish one.
In their words
“We invested in scientists, scientific platforms, and clinical quality, which people don’t do even today.”
Dheeraj Jain, YourStory, 2022 · Interview
“But using drone technology this distance was covered in 88 minutes with one battery swap in between.”
Dheeraj Jain, Mint, May 2022 · Independent
“E-diagnostics in India will go mainstream, with full-throttle growth expected in the near future.”
Dheeraj Jain, Bizz Buzz, 2022 · Interview
“This investment will help us scale rapidly to achieve our goal to reach 500M+ Indians within the next five years.”
Dheeraj Jain, Economic Times, May 2022 · Independent
“Redcliffe is an exemplar of LeapFrog’s focus on digital-led and asset-light business models that enable access to essential healthcare services to emerging consumers.”
Biju Mohandas, LeapFrog, Economic Times, 2022 · Investor
“After being its CEO for 6 years since its inception, I am delighted to welcome my Co-founder Aditya Kandoi to take charge as its CEO.”
Dheeraj Jain, December 2024 announcement · Company release
“Our aim is to democratise access to high-quality, affordable, accurate diagnostics for every Indian, with a particular focus on the underserved populations in tier II and III cities.”
Aditya Kandoi, Series C release, 2024 · Company release
“We are transforming lives and making diagnostics a first-line solution for millions who were previously underserved.”
Aditya Kandoi, quoted July 2025 · Company release
Related companies
Sources
- Public recordForm D and Form D/A, Redcliffe Lifetech Inc, CIK 0001941551
- Public recordCGHS empanelment entry, Redcliffe labs, Noida
- Public recordSigma metrics as quality indicators in laboratory process improvement
- Public recordConsensus on the anti-mullerian hormone assay among Indian gynecologists
- Public recordFDA, ClinicalTrials.gov, NIH RePORTER and NSF searches: no records
- IndependentRedcliffe Lifetech raises $61 Mn led by LeapFrog
- IndependentRedcliffe Lifetech raises $61 million led by LeapFrog Investments
- IndependentRedcliffe Labs raises $42 Mn in Series C round
- IndependentRedcliffe Labs crosses Rs 350 Cr revenue in FY24
- IndependentRedcliffe Labs posts Rs 419 Cr revenue in FY25
- InterviewHow COVID-19 changed everything for Redcliffe Labs
- InterviewRedcliffe Labs plans to add 500 labs by FY27
- IndependentRedcliffe Labs Reports 20% Growth Across Bharat
- IndependentUttarakhand becomes the 1st Indian state to roll out drone in healthcare
- CompanyAditya Kandoi Steps Into CEO Role, Dheeraj Jain as Chairman
- CompanyRedcliffe Lifetech company profile
- CompanyAbout us, and Our Labs and Technology
Profile researched and written by Healthcare Discovery. Last updated September 29, 2026.
