Khet Singh (29) Co-founder, ClaimBuddy
For Khet Singh, the most broken part of India’s health care system was not the treatment itself, but what happened around it. During his early stints at health care startups, he repeatedly saw patients getting admitted, being treated and then left waiting, sometimes for days, as insurance approvals crawled through opaque processes. Hospitals struggled to recover payments, insurers demanded repeat documentation, and patients bore the uncertainty.
“Insurance is supposed to reduce anxiety,” Singh says. “Instead, for many families, it becomes another source of stress.” That observation led to ClaimBuddy, a health care technology company focussed exclusively on insurance claims, which Singh co-founded with Ajit Patel (33).
Singh’s journey into health care entrepreneurship was shaped by early exposure to startups. After graduating from Delhi University’s Khalsa College, he chose early-stage companies over large corporates, joining Urban Company when it was still building out new service categories. He later moved to Pristyn Care, where he was among the first employees and worked closely on health care operations.
After gaining first-hand experience at startups, Singh joined IIM-Bangalore with a clear intention: To learn how to build a business, and from where the idea for ClaimBuddy came about.
Singh opted out of placements entirely to pursue his venture full time. “Once you enter corporate life, it becomes harder to exit,” he says. “This felt like the right moment to try.”
Health care operations, unlike classrooms, continued during the pandemic. Singh split his time between online lectures and hospital visits, setting up ClaimBuddy’s earliest operations from small offices inside diagnostic centres.
The company began with Singh and his team physically sitting at hospital billing desks, working alongside staff to understand why claims failed. Over time, those learnings were translated into software. ClaimBuddy built a technology platform that standardises documentation, integrates across stakeholders in the claims process and manages the entire claims lifecycle.
Today, ClaimBuddy works with around 450 hospitals across India, including large groups such as Max, Apollo and KIMS, as well as mid-sized institutions. The platform processes around 8,000 to 9,000 patient claims every month.
Singh identifies three main reasons for claims getting rejected. Patients often fail to disclose prior conditions, hospitals submit incomplete paperwork and insurers issue rejections which are sometimes contestable. ClaimBuddy’s model focuses on preventing rejections upfront by ensuring documentation is complete and aligned to the treatment type before submission. The venture does not sell insurance policies, a deliberate choice to specialise in claims rather than expand into adjacent services.
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Beyond cashless claims, the company also handles reimbursements. ClaimBuddy finances treatment costs upfront and recovers payments once insurers reimburse patients, without charging interest. “The deposit requirement often delays care,” Singh says. “We try to remove that barrier.”
Kshitij Saxena, partner at Relentless VC and adjunct professor at IIM-Bangalore, first met Singh as a student in his venture capital and entrepreneurship course. What stood out was Singh’s ability to run a startup alongside an intensive academic programme. “The course load at IIM-Bangalore is enormous,” Saxena says. “If someone can manage both, it says a lot about their determination.”
Relentless VC was among ClaimBuddy’s earliest backers, investing in the company in 2021. Singh’s service-oriented approach, says Saxena, was critical. “Health care is not easy to operate in,” he explains. “But Khet had patience and the mindset.”
Singh wants ClaimBuddy to play a larger role in public health care schemes such as Ayushman Bharat, where coverage exists but execution gaps remain. “Health care on paper looks good,” he says. “But execution is where things fall apart.”
First Published: Jan 23, 2026, 12:01
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