Q&A interview with Naluri CEO & Co-Founder Azran Osman Rani

Southeast Asian digital employee health and wellbeing company Naluri Group recently secured a funding boost to support its regional expansion. CEO and Co-Founder Azran Osman Rani shared insights into the company’s future plans.

Which digital health solutions do you provide for each type of stakeholder, and which are the most popular?

At Naluri, we design our digital health solutions around the unique needs of two key stakeholder groups: members—meaning employees and end users—and our corporate clients.

For members, we take a holistic approach to health and wellbeing through what we call our three-tiered strategy.

First, Predict: we provide a wide range of health assessments, from digital self-assessments to full physical screenings.

Next, Prevent: we empower people with self-serve digital tools, including bite-sized educational lessons, health journalling, biomarker tracking, and chat-based coaching.

And finally, Protect: here we offer more targeted interventions such as video consultations, therapy, and structured chronic disease management programmes.

For our corporate clients—typically HR practitioners—we focus on helping organisations foster healthier, more resilient workforces.

We do this in three main ways:

Through a year-round engagement calendar, with articles, webinars, and challenges to keep employees motivated.

Via a self-serve insights dashboard, where clients can track utilisation, engagement, and health outcomes in real time.

And with consultative analytics from our Naluri Health Solutions team, which provides detailed reviews and forecasts on healthcare claims, and identifies opportunities to bend the cost curve.

What challenges have you faced in driving adoption of digital health solutions among corporate clients?

Ultimately, our aim at Naluri is to deliver measurable impact—bridging preventive care, personalised support, and strategic corporate wellness so that both individuals and organisations thrive.

One of the biggest challenges we face in driving adoption of digital health solutions among corporate clients is demonstrating clear ROI and business impact. Employers want hard evidence that a programme will move the needle—whether that’s by boosting productivity, reducing absenteeism, or cutting healthcare costs. Simply making employees “feel better” isn’t enough on its own.

Another common hurdle is integration. Corporate HR and benefits ecosystems are often already full of insurance plans, EAPs, wellness programs, and occupational health services. Employers worry about adding “yet another app” that doesn’t integrate smoothly with existing workflows, data systems, or vendor networks.

Then there’s data privacy and security, which is absolutely critical. Employers are cautious about health-related data due to HIPAA, GDPR, and local regulations. They want airtight assurances on confidentiality, security, and employee trust — and any perceived weakness here can be a dealbreaker.

Finally, there are budget constraints and competing priorities. Health and wellbeing programs compete with many other corporate spending priorities. Even if leadership is interested, timing and budgets can delay decisions, especially if the benefits are longer-term and not immediately visible.

How do you measure the impact of your platform on employee wellbeing and productivity?

At Naluri, we measure impact very deliberately, across four key dimensions.

First, we look at mental health outcomes—tracking measurable improvements in depression, anxiety, and stress.

Second, we measure physical health indicators such as weight, blood pressure, cholesterol, and HbA1c blood sugar levels.

Third, we evaluate workplace outcomes—in particular, reductions in sick leave and presenteeism, which is when employees are physically present but not fully productive.

And finally, we assess financial outcomes by monitoring medical claims cost escalation, giving employers a clear view of potential savings.

How are you leveraging AI within your digital health solutions?

At Naluri, AI plays a central role in how we deliver digital health solutions, and we use it in several practical ways.

First, we deploy emotion and sentiment detection algorithms using natural language processing. This helps us pick up signs of emotional distress, depression, or even suicidal ideation from conversations.

Second, we apply AI in nutrition analysis, where users can upload food photos into their journal, and the system instantly provides a nutrition rating.

Third, we use AI to support our healthcare professionals—for example, by summarising and preparing draft case notes from therapy, counselling, and coaching sessions.

Fourth, we have AI-driven decision-support systems that prioritise and triage users. This means our professionals can safely and effectively manage 10 to 12 times the caseload compared to traditional telehealth models.

And finally, we combine behavioural and clinical data—from wearables, health screenings, mental health assessments, and journalling entries—to generate highly customised health improvement plans for each individual.

How do you ensure data privacy and security in highly sensitive health-related services?

At Naluri, data privacy and security are absolutely foundational to what we do. We’ve invested heavily, not just in systems, but also in dedicated personnel to ensure that sensitive health information is protected to the highest standards.

We hold HiTrust certification, which covers data privacy and security protocols and standards for HIPAA in the United States, GDPR in the European Union, ISO 27001 for information security management, and the PDPA regulations across Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, and Thailand.

For our insurance and corporate employer clients, these aren’t just “nice to haves” — they’re absolute requirements.

What are Naluri’s plans for the Philippines and Vietnam—two very distinct markets?

We already have local care delivery capabilities (counselling and psychology services, diet and nutrition, fitness coaching) in these two countries as part of our service for pan-Asian clients who want us to take care of their employees in these and other Asian markets.

With this investment, we are planning to build local business development and client account management teams to serve local Filipino and Vietnamese clients. Our digital platforms have already been translated into Vietnamese (in addition to English, Bahasa Malaysia, Bahasa Indonesia, Thai, and Chinese).

Our initial focus is to extend the industry-specific insights and benchmark data for the following industries: Energy and mining (including oil and gas and electric utilities), Transportation (airlines, airports, logistics and shipping), Banking and Insurance, Telecommunications and Media, Professional services (accounting and audit, legal, BPO and shared services), and Consumer Products.

The second strategy is to work with corporate life and health insurance providers, insurance brokers, and third-party administrators who have an existing client base in these two markets.

We intend to leverage on the existing work and relationships with their counterparts in Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia where we already have existing collaborations.

Are there plans to expand into other Asian markets in the near future?

No additional market expansions are planned before 2027. Our focus remains on deepening impact in existing regions.

What role do partnerships play in your growth strategy?

As mentioned above, the partnerships that have worked for us are with corporate life and health insurers, insurance brokers, and third party administrators – all of whom serve corporate enterprise clients and all have a common interest in improving employee health and reducing rising medical claims costs.

When we started operations in 2018, partnerships were 5% of our revenue. Two years ago it reached 20% and in 2025 we now have over 30% of revenues coming from partnerships.

Our overall mission is to make mental health and preventive care services (especially for metabolic conditions of obesity, diabetes and heart diseases) a standard insurance coverage or reimbursable because of proven quantifiable ability to reduce future medical claims and lost productivity from sick leave and presenteeism.

Deeper collaboration with these payer partners is essential to make this mission a reality – and as our outcomes dataset grows, we believe we are on track to achieve this in this decade.

In your view, what does the future hold for digital health and corporate wellness, particularly as both technology and employment landscapes evolve?

Right now, most models are still reactive: we wait until an employee gets sick and then expect them to seek care, whether that’s visiting a clinic, a hospital, or booking a telehealth consultation. But as datasets such as ours grow, we’re moving into a new era.

Digital mental health assessments, natural language sentiment detection, micro-facial expression analysis, and wearable data will enable us to predict early signs of stress or health risks. That means we can proactively reach out to employees before issues escalate, ultimately reducing the need for more complex and costly treatments.

The same applies to mental health. Today, mental healthcare for employees is based on either distress management (employee assistance programmes) or coaching and counselling services. But the future is a shift towards mental fitness development from tech-enabled personalised and always-on monitoring and care. That is, using always-on AI-enabled performance coaching to enhance employee focus, creativity and performance.

As technology advances, holistic care models that integrate mental health with physical health, social health, financial health and performance and productivity will become a reality – both through multi-disciplinary care models and overcoming existing limitations to cross-linking different data sources.

And finally, the way we pay for healthcare will evolve. Instead of fee-for-service or capitation insurance premium models, we’ll see dynamic, data-driven pricing that reduces as employees get healthier. Rather than setting premiums by age or declared lifestyle, health insurance will increasingly adjust based on real, ongoing health and lifestyle data—rewarding healthier behaviours with lower costs.

Similar to telematics in motor insurance, which tracks driving behaviours and dynamically adjusts premiums, health insurance should evolve from standard population-based models—where premiums are set by age, gender, or self-reported lifestyle—and instead adopt dynamically adjusted premiums based on real-time health data collected from an individual’s lifestyle and behaviours.