HelpNow

Overview

HelpNow began as an IIT Bombay student project and became a 24-hour ambulance dispatch network during India's first COVID-19 wave. It combined owned ambulances, aggregated private vehicles, a call center, and “MedCabs” that trained rideshare drivers as first responders. By 2022 a nonprofit partner said the network covered more than 750 ambulances and emergency vehicles and had answered more than 34,000 calls.^[1]

YC now labels HelpNow inactive, but no verified shutdown or acquisition surfaced.^[2] The company faced a structural bind even at peak traction: it wanted to cut response times and prices while controlling neither every vehicle nor every operator, and its founders also wanted the service to become free. The present domain still advertises ambulance service, though public evidence does not establish whether it belongs to the YC company.^[3]

Founding Story

Aditya Makkar and Shikhar Agrawal met through IIT Bombay's XLR8 robotics competition and worked together on an institute technical project. HelpNow started as an entry in E-Cell's EUREKA business-model competition. The project reached the semifinal, and a mentor urged them to try operating it. Venkatesh Amrutwar, a 2017 IIT Bombay graduate and former E-Cell coordinator, joined as a co-founder in 2019.^[4]

The origin was personal. Makkar said: “My father had a cardiac arrest just a week before my JEE exam, thankfully because of the contacts we had in the hospital we were able to get an ambulance on time.” The experience showed him that emergency transport depended too heavily on access and personal connections.^[4]

The founders were unusually young. Makkar and Agrawal tested food delivery and movie-prop auctions while studying, then raised angel money for HelpNow during their fourth semester. They later secured permission to leave IIT Bombay and return, a step their interview described as unprecedented at the institute.^[4]

Their first operating thesis was aggregation. Mumbai had private ambulances, but callers could not reliably discover, compare, or dispatch the nearest suitable vehicle. HelpNow built a central helpline, inspected partner ambulances, ran a small owned fleet, and experimented with converting Uber vehicles into trained first-response cars. During the pandemic, demand forced the project into full emergency operations. Makkar later said, “Though we were not prepared for a health crisis this large, medical transportation was the worst hit, we plunged right in.”^[5]

Timeline

• 2017: A delayed ambulance during Makkar's father's cardiac emergency supplied the founding problem.^[6]
• 2019: Amrutwar joined; the team launched in Mumbai and developed its aggregation model.^[4]
• Winter 2020: HelpNow joined Y Combinator; funding databases place a small seed round around $125,000 to $150,000.^[2][7]
• May 2020: Times of India reported 45 ambulances and about 3,600 calls in one month.^[6]
• June 2020: An IIT Bombay report described more than 350 participating vehicles and 9,000 calls.^[8]
• October 2021: India Today named HelpNow Mumbai's best ambulance service in its Healthgiri Awards.^[9]
• 2022: Help.NGO reported more than 750 vehicles, 18 partner hospitals, and 34,000 calls.^[1]
• By 2026: YC marked HelpNow inactive; no public terminal event was found.^[2]

What They Built

HelpNow gave callers one helpline for several ambulance classes. The service covered basic and advanced life support, cardiac and ICU transport, neonatal vehicles, hearses, air and train transport, and inter-city trips. A dispatcher matched the medical need and location to an available vehicle.^[5]

Supply came from three places. HelpNow operated some ambulances, aggregated private operators, and trained rideshare drivers to provide first response through its mini-ambulance kit. The first two layers moved patients. The third tried to put basic aid closer to the caller while a full ambulance traveled.

Pandemic operations sharpened the system. The team equipped drivers and attendants with protective gear, sanitized vehicles after calls, and reserved ambulances for COVID patients. In May 2020, HelpNow-owned vehicles reportedly charged INR 500 for the first five kilometers. The company could set those prices but acknowledged that independent operators controlled their own rates.^[6]