Medfort Hospitals has announced merger with Maxivision Eye Hospitals, a Hyderabad-based eye-care chain specialising in refractive treatment.

The merger will result in all the eye-care initiatives of the Medfort group being rebranded as Maxivision Eyecare and Maxivision Lasik Suites, housing cataract and retina units.

Medfort currently runs diabetes and eye care centres in Delhi and Chennai. With the Maxivision merger, Medfort gains access to cities in Andhra Pradesh as well. The combined entity will have 15 hospitals, which will be ramped up to 50 across the country, over the next one and a half years, said Dr G. S. K. Velu, Chairman, Medfort Hospitals. Dr Kasu Prasad Reddy, founder of Maxivision Eye Hospitals, will get on board the combined entity as Co-Chairman, heading all eye-care initiatives of the ‘Medfort Maxivision Group'.

In November last year, Medfort had attracted an investment of Rs 60 crore from TVS Capital Funds and ePlanet Ventures. Another Rs 10 crore was invested by the promoter Dr Velu, who is also the founder of medical equipment company Trivitron. Medfort is looking at another round of investment of Rs 20-30 crore – which will be a combination of funding from the same investors and promoter money.

The total capital base of Rs 100 crore will be utilised for Medfort's expansion plan for the next two years. Diabetes and eye-care centres will come up in Andhra Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, and Karnataka. Medfort is also setting up a centre in Ras Al Khaimah, UAE. Plans are also on to expand into Africa, South Asia and South East Asia.